About English
Whenever students tell me how hard learning English is, I share this piece with them and say, “You should try teaching it!”
We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox should be oxen, not oxes.
Then one fowl is goose, but two are called geese.
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a whole lot of mice.
But the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn’t the plural of pan be called pen?
The cow in the plural may be cows or kine,
But the plural of vow is vows, not vine.
And I speak of foot and you show me your feet,
But I give you a boot…would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth, and the whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn’t the plural of booth be called beeth?
If the singular is this and the plural is these,
Should the plural of kiss be nicknamed kese?
Then one may be that, and three may be those,
Yet the plural of hat would never be hose.
We speak of a brother, and also of bretheren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
The masculine pronouns are he, his, and him,
But imagine the feminine is she, shis and shim!
So our English, I think you will all agree,
Is the trickiest language you ever did see.
I’m sorry for not being able to cite this reference. It was passed along to student teachers in my MA program at CSF and there is no reference on the page. After doing internet research, I learned that the author is unknown.
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