Odds & Sods

[GM43]

An ode to English plurals

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?
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?

 

[Peter Mitry]

And I thought learning Arabic was going to be difficult! It should be a piece of cake (or would that be a slice!)

 

[Lsab]

I really enjoyed that GM43. I tried to think of more but my brain's been too overworked today. I'm going for a cuppa and a lie-down!!!!

 

[Georgina]

Creepy Crawlies

The good news is the mossies disappear when it gets really hot in July and August. In El Gouna they are smoked out everyday but I always keep my mossie netting frames shut when I open windows and doors. Mossies can be bad here though outside El Gouna.

I have tiny little spiders that spin tiny webs which cover completely in flying sand. Never seen any big spiders.

Rats everywhere there is food and people. They put rat poison down in small terracota pipes. Even some yachts have round discs on their mooring ropes to stop rats running along them and coming aboard. Don't leave boxes of bottled water outside because the rats bite into the box and bottle to drink. Some people have told me they have left their villas shut up when away and come back to signs of unwelcome guests. They climb up the toilet pipe so keep the seat down fellas

I have heard one story of scorpions in the desert here.

Cockroaches will come where there is food and rubbish but they spray chemicals around all the villas.

Ants are now back with a vengance after the tiniest crumb.

Desert foxes often seen at night in El Gouna.

I only heard of snakes when they started to dig out the new marina which is under construction in El Gouna and disturbed a lot of snakes that moved onto Mangroovy beach. Never worried about snakes until I watched Animal Planet two days ago and Austin Stevens was travelling from Cairo to Sudan along the Nile in a felluca. He found cobras on the farms and crocodiles in the Nile and then went into a tomb that wasn't open to the public and there were snakes everywhere Glad I didn't see that before I camped out under the stars in the White Desert!

 

[Lsab]

I need an emoticon that shows someone passing out!!!!!

Mind you Bahrain has a rat problem and of course we get cockroaches - never seen a spider or had a mozzie bite though they get me everywhere else including Wales. There must be snakes and scorpions in the desert but I think we're OK for crocodiles!!

 

[vix]

I need an emoticon that shows someone passing out!!!!!

Mind you Bahrain has a rat problem and of course we get cockroaches - never seen a spider or had a mozzie bite though they get me everywhere else including Wales. There must be snakes and scorpions in the desert but I think we're OK for crocodiles!!

I have never been bitten once by a mozzie in Dubai, but Hurghada, covered in them!!
In Jordan, they have these cockroach like creatures that come out of the toilet at nite. They're HUGE, and have yellow stripes on them. Ugghhh!!!