segunda-feira, 21 de julho de 2008

AIN'T ENGLISH WEIRD?

  • (mandado por Tutuca)
  • Ain't English Weird?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 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?
  • 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?
  • Author unknown

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