Reading, the Only Way......

ONLY THE ENGLISH COULD HAVE INVENTED THIS LANGUAGE

We will 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 call 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 neither 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 neither
is 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 mend?


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, Â how come Mother's not Mop?

AND IF PEOPLE FROM POLAND ARE CALLED POLES THEN PEOPLE FROM HOLLAND SHOULD
BE HOLES AND THE GERMANS, GERMS.

The above article was sent to me by Fernando Young, from AIA Changi Toastmasters' Club.

As children we were thrown into the school in Penang and asked to learn everything in English and another compulsory languge, Bahasa Malaysia. The irony was that the only ones speaking English at home were my second sister and young cousins. The older folks spoke mainly in Hokkien, Mandarin and Malay. Now I laugh, because knowing that my relatives would not know if I were to make a mistake, it gave me courage to rattle off nursery rhymes which I had learnt by rote. I was filled with childish pride when my relatives were easily amazed with my rendition of Humpty Dumpty, Mary had a little lamb, etc. etc.

English lessons were boring for me for the teachers would drill us in the tenses, and we had to memorise almost everything. They never explained why we must use "an" for words beginning with a, e, i, o, u, and we children were afraid to ask questions. Fortunately, I found an acute interest in reading, and Enid Blyton was my favourite writer with A.J. Cronin coming in close.
In fact I found my story books more interesting than the geography and English lessons in class so much so that I would often hide my story books with my text books as back up, so that I could continue to find out the plots in the stories. Sometimes during essay writing I would use words that came to me naturally even though I was not quite sure of the meanings at times. That started me on a keen interest in the dictionary. It is easier to read than to learn the rules of grammar for after all, the rules were made only to be broken and made more confusing for anyone who tried to master the language. Soon I became one of the best in essay writing and started winning many prizes for my essays. As my hearing deteriorated due to an accident when I was nine years old, I spent most of my time in silent reading. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise.! Although my stone deafness was restored during a healing session by a visitor pastor from India, I am still a creature of habit. If I only had a dollar in my pockets, I would prefer to use it to buy newspapers than bread for breakfast!

The only way to combat all these confusion in the English Language is by reading.
Hence, I would encourage my readers to try and find time to read as much as they can for "reading maketh a full man." Best of all, it enhances our fluency in languages.

Cheers and happy learning and reading!

Gan Chau