Here is the email that started this nonsense (I've edited out the personal info
to protect the guilty):

Richard

Thought you'd get a kick out of this...


Deb



------ Forwarded Message
From: charley65 <charley65@mail.xxxx.net>
Reply-To: charley65@mail.xxxx.net
Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 19:09:00 -0500
To: Debxxx@xxxxnney.com, xxxx@xxxng.com,
brianxxx1960@yahoo.com, jaixxxt@xxxcorp.com, gxxxxie19980@aol.com,
xxxbadough@cxxxxcast.net, danny.xxxxx@axxp.com, xxxxxbrew@xxxxglobal.net,
rxxxxbert@xxxx.com
Subject: FWD: Teaching English In the USA

Now you know why I speak redneck!


---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: Mindy <mindyxxxxx8@yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 07:20:28 -0700 (PDT)

TEACHING ENGLISH IN THE U.S.A.

We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes; but the
plural of ox became 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 spoke 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.

Some other reasons to be grateful if you grew up speaking
English:

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was
time to present the present.
8) At the Army base, a bass was painted on the head of a bass
drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) After a number of Novocain injections, my jaw got number.
19) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
22) I spent last evening evening out a pile of dirt.

Screwy pronunciations can mess up your mind! For example...If
you have a rough cough, climbing can be tough when going
through the bough on a tree!

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?
Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and
feet that smell?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a
wise man and a wiseguy 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.

If Dad is Pop, how's come Mom isn't Mop?

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! - Internet access at a great low price.


________________________________________________________________
Sent via the XX1 webmail system at mail.XX1.net