----- Original
An Ode to the English Plural
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 there 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?
Friday, February 25, 2011
FW- Here is something to think about... Thanks Judi Cole!
Here's something to think about . . . .
I remember asking dad about Castro when I was about
9 years old. I asked , "Is Castro a good guy or bad?"
Dad said he couldn't tell!! This was about 1955. We
were living in Louisiana at the time . Dad was in the army
there.
Cuba was fairly close and in the news a lot. The
Cubans were asking the same question! Ike was president.
This past July, we had the pleasure of sharing a
summer barbecue with a refugee from Cuba . Our dinner
conversation was starkly different than most.
This refugee came to the United States as a young
boy in the early 1960s. His family was more fortunate than
most as they were able to bring a suitcase and $100 when
they fled Castro's newly formed revolutionary paradise.
Our dinner consisted of all-American fare:
hamburgers, potato salad, watermelon and fresh ears of sweet
corn. This is a menu shared with family and friends
nationwide, while celebrating the birth of our beloved
America on the Fourth of July.
We began with a simple discussion about our country
and the direction it has taken since Barack Obama came to
power. We shared the usual complaints about the sour
economy and liberal social engineering emanating from the
rulers in Washington .
But then he said it. The sentence came naturally.
I assume it was unplanned. But it carried the weight of a
freight train. "You know when Castro took power, none of us
knew he was a Communist."
We sat stunned. He continued, "Yes, we all thought
he was a patriot, a nationalist. Before the revolution he
didn't sound like a radical."
The comparison at this point was easy, and I
interjected, "You mean just like Barack Obama?"
He responded, "Yes, just like Barack Obama."
He continued, "We were all shocked as the government
just continued to grab more power. First they said the
revolution is over, so please turn in your guns. We all
complied."
"I remember my uncle saying after it started,
'Castro will only nationalize some of the big industries, he
will never come and take our family hardware store. 'But
that is exactly what happened, Castro started with the sugar
mills and the large industries, but they eventually came and
knocked on the door of our family hardware store. My family
had run this store for generations. They said we now own
the hardware store, you work for us. And that nice, large
four-bedroom home you own, it is now our property also, and
you can move yourself and five children into two rooms of
the house because others are moving in with you."
The lesson learned from this discussion is a lesson
most Americans refuse to hear. Political leaders can lie
about their agenda and once in office they can take totally
unexpected turns.
If you had asked us three years ago if we thought
General Motors would be nationalized, we would have never
believed it. We could never contemplate a country where the
rule of law, the most fundamental building block of a
justice society would be evaporating just like it did in
Castro's Cuba in the early 1960s.
But the news of injustice keeps increasing. Black
Panthers are not charged with wrongdoing by the U.S.
Department of Justice because their crimes are against
whites. The bondholders of GM are stripped of their assets
without due process by the government. Governmental leaders
are bribed in full daylight only to have all investigation
of the crimes stifled by the Attorney General. The U.S.
borders are overrun with crime and illegal activity and the
leaders in D.C. act as if it is important to protect the
lawbreakers while the innocent are killed and overrun. When
local communities attempt to enforce the law, they are
ridiculed and threatened as racists and bigots. They are
sued by the very administration entrusted with enforcing
the law.
Without the rule of law the U.S. Constitution is a
sham. Without the rule of law our beloved America is
swiftly becoming a country where only the well connected and
politically powerful will be safe. As Michelle Malkin has
so eloquently explained in her recent book, a culture of
corruption has replaced honest government.
The only way this problem will be fixed is by
massive citizen action. All honest citizens that want to be
treated equally must come together and demand that the
favoritism, the bribes, the uneven enforcement of law end
now. And yes, it can happen here.
PLEASE SEND THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW ...
And may God save Us & The United States of America !
May your blessings out number the shamrocks that grow.
I remember asking dad about Castro when I was about
9 years old. I asked , "Is Castro a good guy or bad?"
Dad said he couldn't tell!! This was about 1955. We
were living in Louisiana at the time . Dad was in the army
there.
Cuba was fairly close and in the news a lot. The
Cubans were asking the same question! Ike was president.
This past July, we had the pleasure of sharing a
summer barbecue with a refugee from Cuba . Our dinner
conversation was starkly different than most.
This refugee came to the United States as a young
boy in the early 1960s. His family was more fortunate than
most as they were able to bring a suitcase and $100 when
they fled Castro's newly formed revolutionary paradise.
Our dinner consisted of all-American fare:
hamburgers, potato salad, watermelon and fresh ears of sweet
corn. This is a menu shared with family and friends
nationwide, while celebrating the birth of our beloved
America on the Fourth of July.
We began with a simple discussion about our country
and the direction it has taken since Barack Obama came to
power. We shared the usual complaints about the sour
economy and liberal social engineering emanating from the
rulers in Washington .
But then he said it. The sentence came naturally.
I assume it was unplanned. But it carried the weight of a
freight train. "You know when Castro took power, none of us
knew he was a Communist."
We sat stunned. He continued, "Yes, we all thought
he was a patriot, a nationalist. Before the revolution he
didn't sound like a radical."
The comparison at this point was easy, and I
interjected, "You mean just like Barack Obama?"
He responded, "Yes, just like Barack Obama."
He continued, "We were all shocked as the government
just continued to grab more power. First they said the
revolution is over, so please turn in your guns. We all
complied."
"I remember my uncle saying after it started,
'Castro will only nationalize some of the big industries, he
will never come and take our family hardware store. 'But
that is exactly what happened, Castro started with the sugar
mills and the large industries, but they eventually came and
knocked on the door of our family hardware store. My family
had run this store for generations. They said we now own
the hardware store, you work for us. And that nice, large
four-bedroom home you own, it is now our property also, and
you can move yourself and five children into two rooms of
the house because others are moving in with you."
The lesson learned from this discussion is a lesson
most Americans refuse to hear. Political leaders can lie
about their agenda and once in office they can take totally
unexpected turns.
If you had asked us three years ago if we thought
General Motors would be nationalized, we would have never
believed it. We could never contemplate a country where the
rule of law, the most fundamental building block of a
justice society would be evaporating just like it did in
Castro's Cuba in the early 1960s.
But the news of injustice keeps increasing. Black
Panthers are not charged with wrongdoing by the U.S.
Department of Justice because their crimes are against
whites. The bondholders of GM are stripped of their assets
without due process by the government. Governmental leaders
are bribed in full daylight only to have all investigation
of the crimes stifled by the Attorney General. The U.S.
borders are overrun with crime and illegal activity and the
leaders in D.C. act as if it is important to protect the
lawbreakers while the innocent are killed and overrun. When
local communities attempt to enforce the law, they are
ridiculed and threatened as racists and bigots. They are
sued by the very administration entrusted with enforcing
the law.
Without the rule of law the U.S. Constitution is a
sham. Without the rule of law our beloved America is
swiftly becoming a country where only the well connected and
politically powerful will be safe. As Michelle Malkin has
so eloquently explained in her recent book, a culture of
corruption has replaced honest government.
The only way this problem will be fixed is by
massive citizen action. All honest citizens that want to be
treated equally must come together and demand that the
favoritism, the bribes, the uneven enforcement of law end
now. And yes, it can happen here.
PLEASE SEND THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW ...
And may God save Us & The United States of America !
May your blessings out number the shamrocks that grow.
FW- Baptist dinner... Thanks Tom & Carolyn!
BAPTIST DINNER
A group of country friends from the Cottonwood Baptist Church wanted to get together on a regular basis, socialize, and play games.
The lady of the house was to prepare the meal. When it came time for Al and Janet to be the hosts - Janet wanted to outdo all the others.
Janet decided to have mushroom-smothered steak. But, mushrooms are expensive.
She then told her husband, "No mushrooms. They are too high."
He said, "Why don't you go down in the pasture and pick some of those mushrooms? There are plenty in the creek bed."
She said, "No, some wild mushrooms are poison."
He said, "Well, I see varmints eating them and they're OK.
So Janet decided to give it a try. She picked a bunch, washed, sliced, and diced them for her smothered steak.
Then she went out on the back porch and gave Ol' Spot (the yard dog) a double handful. Ol' Spot ate every bite.
All morning long, Janet watched Ol' Spot and the wild mushrooms didn't seem to affect him, so she decided to use them. The meal was a great success, and Janet even hired a helper lady from town to help her serve. She had on a white apron and a fancy little cap on her head.
After everyone had finished, they relaxed, socialized, and played 42 & Mexican dominoes.
About then, the helper lady from town, came in and whispered in Janet's ear. She said, "Mrs. Williams, Ol' Spot just died." Janet went into hysterics. After she finally calmed down, she called the doctor and told him what had happened.
The doctor said, "That's bad, but I think we can take care of it.
I will call for an ambulance and I will be there as quick as possible. We'll give everyone enemas and we will pump out everyone's stomach Everything will be fine. Just keep them calm."
Soon they could hear the siren as the ambulance was coming down the road. The EMTs & the doctor had their suitcases, syringes, and a stomach pump.
One by one, they took each person into the bathroom, gave them an enema and pumped out their stomach. After the last one was finished, the doctor came out and said, "I think everything will be fine now, and he left."
They were all looking pretty weak sitting around the living room and about this time, the helper lady came in and said,
"You know that fellow that ran over Ol' Spot never even stopped.т
If Con is the opposite of Pro, is Congress the opposite of Progress?
A group of country friends from the Cottonwood Baptist Church wanted to get together on a regular basis, socialize, and play games.
The lady of the house was to prepare the meal. When it came time for Al and Janet to be the hosts - Janet wanted to outdo all the others.
Janet decided to have mushroom-smothered steak. But, mushrooms are expensive.
She then told her husband, "No mushrooms. They are too high."
He said, "Why don't you go down in the pasture and pick some of those mushrooms? There are plenty in the creek bed."
She said, "No, some wild mushrooms are poison."
He said, "Well, I see varmints eating them and they're OK.
So Janet decided to give it a try. She picked a bunch, washed, sliced, and diced them for her smothered steak.
Then she went out on the back porch and gave Ol' Spot (the yard dog) a double handful. Ol' Spot ate every bite.
All morning long, Janet watched Ol' Spot and the wild mushrooms didn't seem to affect him, so she decided to use them. The meal was a great success, and Janet even hired a helper lady from town to help her serve. She had on a white apron and a fancy little cap on her head.
After everyone had finished, they relaxed, socialized, and played 42 & Mexican dominoes.
About then, the helper lady from town, came in and whispered in Janet's ear. She said, "Mrs. Williams, Ol' Spot just died." Janet went into hysterics. After she finally calmed down, she called the doctor and told him what had happened.
The doctor said, "That's bad, but I think we can take care of it.
I will call for an ambulance and I will be there as quick as possible. We'll give everyone enemas and we will pump out everyone's stomach Everything will be fine. Just keep them calm."
Soon they could hear the siren as the ambulance was coming down the road. The EMTs & the doctor had their suitcases, syringes, and a stomach pump.
One by one, they took each person into the bathroom, gave them an enema and pumped out their stomach. After the last one was finished, the doctor came out and said, "I think everything will be fine now, and he left."
They were all looking pretty weak sitting around the living room and about this time, the helper lady came in and said,
"You know that fellow that ran over Ol' Spot never even stopped.т
If Con is the opposite of Pro, is Congress the opposite of Progress?
o's bipartison debt-reduction rec's ignored
After Obama, the Deluge
By Victor Davis Hanson
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com
President Obama established a bipartisan debt-reduction commission -- and then ignored its findings, which called for unpopular reductions in entitlements and across-the-board spending cuts. His first two budgets led to the largest deficits in U.S. history. The ensuing $3 trillion dollars in red ink prompted the Tea Party movement and led to the largest midterm defeat of the Democratic Party in the House of Representatives since 1938.
No matter. The president has proposed a new budget with an even larger, $1.6 trillion deficit. That record federal borrowing prompted columnist Charles Krauthammer to describe it as Louis XV indulgence, an allusion to the wild royal spending that brought about the French Revolution. Even Newsweek editor at large Evan Thomas, who once gushed that Obama stood "above the world" as some "sort of God," called the president's new budget a "profile in cowardice." After Obama leaves office, a perfect storm of rising international interest rates, an anemic dollar and panic on the part of foreign lenders may force an end to this unhinged American rush to borrow and blow what it has not earned.
Gas prices in many parts of the country are nearing $4 a gallon; it could get even worse as unrest spreads throughout the oil-exporting Middle East. Yet the Obama administration once again seems to see no crisis. It has curtailed new leases for offshore oil exploration for seven years and exempted thousands of acres in the West from new drilling. It will not reconsider opening up small areas of Alaska with known large oil reserves.
Instead, the administration in 2009 pushed through cap-and-trade legislation in the House on the dubious proposition that, in times of unusually cold American winters, the planet is warming up. Accordingly, the administration would like to tax further the already high price of fossil fuels rather than go all out to look for more. Yet importing more oil from abroad and growing more subsidized biofuels at home will lead to a disastrous trifecta of borrowing even more money, ensuring greater global pollution and causing higher world food prices.
Obamacare -- the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act -- was pushed through the Senate in 2009 through backroom deal-making and special perks for fence-sitting senators. The premise was that it would save both patients and the nation billions of dollars. But updated estimates now suggest that the takeover of health care will cost the country about $2 trillion over the next decade while disrupting and making more costly existing health plans.
That worry may explain why the administration has quietly granted waivers from its own "affordable" plan to some 700 organizations covering 2 million workers -- 40 percent of them union members. Long after the president has left office, everyone else who is not so privileged to be exempted will have to live with the consequence of a cumbersome and costly new federal health bureau.
The president just weighed in on the Wisconsin budget deadlock, suggesting that Gov. Scott Walker was out to punish public-sector unions more than to figure out a way to close a $3 billion state deficit. But unlike the federal government, Walker cannot print money, and he cannot so easily raise taxes without losing residents who might flee to lower-tax states. That the president wants unions to know he is on their side is clear; that he cares how the people of Wisconsin are going to pay for sky-high public-employee wages, benefits and health care is not so evident.
In these lean times of nearly 10 percent unemployment and rapid hikes in gas and food prices, the president has chastised "fat cat" Wall Street bankers, the wealthy who jet to the Super Bowl, those who junket to Las Vegas, and in general suggested that strapped American families might wish to "sacrifice" and "put off a vacation." But in "let them eat cake" style, the first family seems tone-deaf to the potential symbolism of postponing its own exclusive vacations. Michele Obama just returned from skiing at an elite Vail, Colo., resort. Last summer in Marie Antoinette fashion, she jetted to Costa del Sol in Spain for a costly Mediterranean vacation. The rich playground at Martha's Vineyard, not Camp David, seems now to be the favorite presidential recession-era getaway spot.
Shortly after Barack Obama leaves office, we are all going to have to eat cake. Then a less eloquent president will have to balance budgets, pay off trillions in new debt, develop more energy, come up with a sane health-care policy, and in symbolic fashion have the first family share the sacrifice of a more mundane lifestyle.
Victor Davis Hanson, a classicist and military historian, is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a recipient of the 2007 National Humanities Medal. Comment by clicking here.
By Victor Davis Hanson
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com
President Obama established a bipartisan debt-reduction commission -- and then ignored its findings, which called for unpopular reductions in entitlements and across-the-board spending cuts. His first two budgets led to the largest deficits in U.S. history. The ensuing $3 trillion dollars in red ink prompted the Tea Party movement and led to the largest midterm defeat of the Democratic Party in the House of Representatives since 1938.
No matter. The president has proposed a new budget with an even larger, $1.6 trillion deficit. That record federal borrowing prompted columnist Charles Krauthammer to describe it as Louis XV indulgence, an allusion to the wild royal spending that brought about the French Revolution. Even Newsweek editor at large Evan Thomas, who once gushed that Obama stood "above the world" as some "sort of God," called the president's new budget a "profile in cowardice." After Obama leaves office, a perfect storm of rising international interest rates, an anemic dollar and panic on the part of foreign lenders may force an end to this unhinged American rush to borrow and blow what it has not earned.
Gas prices in many parts of the country are nearing $4 a gallon; it could get even worse as unrest spreads throughout the oil-exporting Middle East. Yet the Obama administration once again seems to see no crisis. It has curtailed new leases for offshore oil exploration for seven years and exempted thousands of acres in the West from new drilling. It will not reconsider opening up small areas of Alaska with known large oil reserves.
Instead, the administration in 2009 pushed through cap-and-trade legislation in the House on the dubious proposition that, in times of unusually cold American winters, the planet is warming up. Accordingly, the administration would like to tax further the already high price of fossil fuels rather than go all out to look for more. Yet importing more oil from abroad and growing more subsidized biofuels at home will lead to a disastrous trifecta of borrowing even more money, ensuring greater global pollution and causing higher world food prices.
Obamacare -- the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act -- was pushed through the Senate in 2009 through backroom deal-making and special perks for fence-sitting senators. The premise was that it would save both patients and the nation billions of dollars. But updated estimates now suggest that the takeover of health care will cost the country about $2 trillion over the next decade while disrupting and making more costly existing health plans.
That worry may explain why the administration has quietly granted waivers from its own "affordable" plan to some 700 organizations covering 2 million workers -- 40 percent of them union members. Long after the president has left office, everyone else who is not so privileged to be exempted will have to live with the consequence of a cumbersome and costly new federal health bureau.
The president just weighed in on the Wisconsin budget deadlock, suggesting that Gov. Scott Walker was out to punish public-sector unions more than to figure out a way to close a $3 billion state deficit. But unlike the federal government, Walker cannot print money, and he cannot so easily raise taxes without losing residents who might flee to lower-tax states. That the president wants unions to know he is on their side is clear; that he cares how the people of Wisconsin are going to pay for sky-high public-employee wages, benefits and health care is not so evident.
In these lean times of nearly 10 percent unemployment and rapid hikes in gas and food prices, the president has chastised "fat cat" Wall Street bankers, the wealthy who jet to the Super Bowl, those who junket to Las Vegas, and in general suggested that strapped American families might wish to "sacrifice" and "put off a vacation." But in "let them eat cake" style, the first family seems tone-deaf to the potential symbolism of postponing its own exclusive vacations. Michele Obama just returned from skiing at an elite Vail, Colo., resort. Last summer in Marie Antoinette fashion, she jetted to Costa del Sol in Spain for a costly Mediterranean vacation. The rich playground at Martha's Vineyard, not Camp David, seems now to be the favorite presidential recession-era getaway spot.
Shortly after Barack Obama leaves office, we are all going to have to eat cake. Then a less eloquent president will have to balance budgets, pay off trillions in new debt, develop more energy, come up with a sane health-care policy, and in symbolic fashion have the first family share the sacrifice of a more mundane lifestyle.
Victor Davis Hanson, a classicist and military historian, is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a recipient of the 2007 National Humanities Medal. Comment by clicking here.
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