NOT YOUR USUAL SUSPECTS

A group blog featuring an international array of killer mystery, suspense, and romantic suspense writers. With premises and story lines different from your run-of-the-mill whodunits, we tend to write outside the box. We blog several times a week on all topics relating to romantic suspense and mystery, our writing, and our readers. We welcome all comments and often have guest bloggers. All our authors can be contacted separately, too, using their own social media links.

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Julie Moffet . Cathy Perkins . Jean Harrington . Daryl Anderson . Nico Rosso . Maureen A Miller . Sandy Parks . Lisa Q Mathews . Sharon Calvin . Lynne Connolly . Janis Patterson . Vanessa Keir . Tonya Kappes . Julie Rowe . Joni M Fisher . Leslie Langtry

Monday, February 27, 2012

The English language - hilarious or brilliant?!

Ever thought learning a foreign language was too much of a challenge for you? Let's take a quick, fun look at our very own... :)



English - absolutely hilarious/brilliant!
We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet 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?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and there would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!


Let's face it - English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;
Neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren't invented in England.

We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes,
We find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square,
And a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write, but fingers don't fing,
Grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?

Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend?
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them,
What do you call it?
If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English
Should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.
In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?

We ship by truck but send cargo by ship...
We have noses that run and feet that smell.
We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.
And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,
While a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language
In which your house can burn up as it burns down,
In which you fill in a form by filling it out,
And in which an alarm goes off by going on.


And in closing..........



If Father is Pop, how come Mother's not Mop???







From Clare and all at Not Your Usual Suspects - HAPPY MONDAY! And isn't *that* a confusion in itself? :)

11 comments:

Anne Marie Becker said...

Love this, Clare. The English language boggles the mind. (And now it's going to bug me all day...why ISN'T there pine or apple in pineapple? Where the heck did they get that from? LOL)

Toni Anderson said...

Fabulous :)

Maureen A. Miller said...

Love it, Clare. Actually we were just talking about this topic. When English is not a person's first language they often say "Today morning" instead of "This morning". And I can see why they do. We say, "Yesterday morning", so why not, "Today morning"? LOL

Rita said...

So true. And with slang comes new meanings for old words. UGG! I’m up for returning to Latin.

Clare London said...

Ah now, I'm a HUGE fan of Latin! What a nice, sensible sentence construction.... :)

One amusing story was from our Dutch friends - who BTW speak wonderful English that I could never match with my pathetic 18 words of Dutch. But he was describing sending a postcard home from London and said he'd write "on the backside". He couldn't understand why hubby and I fell about laughing!

Unknown said...

I love this, Clare. Wonderful. :)

I'm a huge fan of Latin too. Let's start a campaign to bring it back!

Kathy Ivan said...

So cute, and so very true. I guess that's why English is so difficulty for people to learn as a second language, it's just too screwed up.

Great post, Clare. I needed the chuckle this morning. :-)

CathyP said...

Wonderful way to start the day with a laugh

CathyP said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
CathyP said...

Blogger is apparently brilliant this morning, double posting

Elise Warner said...

Delightful, Clare. I needed the laughter today.

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