ONLY THE ENGLISH  COULD HAVE INVENTED THIS LANGUAGE

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,
Then 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 three  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?

I WOULD LIKE  TO ADD THAT IF PEOPLE FROM POLAND ARE CALLED POLES THEN PEOPLE  FROM HOLLAND   SHOULD  BE HOLES AND THE GERMANS, GERMS

And I (Megan) would like to add... wait what was it I wanted to add?
Ah yes, Hamburgers- I thought they were named after 'Hamburg' and not Ham.