Perhaps English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren't invented in England nor French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.
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.
One goose, two geese. So one moose, two meese?
And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?
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, when the stars are out, they are visible.
How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike? How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell another?
You may have found a lone mouse or a whole set of mice, yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If I speak of a foot and you show me your 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 should not the plural of booth be called beeth?
Then one may be that and three would be those, yet hat in the plural wouldn't be hose, and the plural of cat is cats and 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.
If quitters never win, and winners never quit, what fool came up with "quit while you're ahead?"
Have you met a sung hero or expeienced requited love? Have you ever run into someone who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable?
And where are all those people who are spring chickens or who would actually hurt a fly? And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up my day, I end it?
