An ode to English

An Ode to English 

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 is pen.

If I speak of my foot and show 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 brethren,

But though we say mother, we never say methren.

Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and hm,

But imagine the feminine: she, shis, shim!

There is no egg in eggplant nor harm 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?

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 slime chance and a fat chance be the same,

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?

And if people from Poland are called Poles

Then people from Holland should be Holes

And the Germans, Germs. And let's not forget the Americans,

who changed s to z, but that's not another story.

Let's Face it - English is a unique language.