Poem

Here is a terrific poem I have found which shows the unbelievable oddness of our language

Unfortunately, no-one seems to know the name of the genius who composed this fabulous poem about the craziness of the English language:

The English Lesson

Well begin with box, and the plural is boxes, But the plural of ox should be oxen, not oxes. Then one fowl is goose, but two are called geese, Yet the plural of moose should never be meese. You may find a lone mouse or a whole lot of mice, But the plural of house is houses, not hice. If the plural of man is always called men, Why shouldnt the plural of pan be pen? The cow in the plural may be cows or kine, But the plural of vow is vows, not vine. And I speak of a foot, and you show me your feet, But I give a boot would a pair be beet? If one is a tooth, and a whole set is teeth, Why shouldnt the plural of booth be beeth?

If the singular is this, and the plural is these, Why shouldnt the plural of kiss be kese? Then one may be that, and three be those, Yet the plural of hat would never be hose. We speak of a brother, and also of brethren, But though we say mother, we never say methren. The masculine pronouns are he, his and him, But imagine the feminine she, shis, and shim. So our English, I think you will agree, Is the trickiest language you ever did see. I take it you already know of tough, and bough and cough and dough? Others may stumble, but not you on hiccough, through, slough and though. Well done! And now you wish, perhaps To learn of less familiar traps? Beware of heard, a dreadful word That looks like beard and sounds like bird. And dead; its said like bed, not bead! For goodness sake, dont call it deed! Watch out for meat and great and threat, (They rhyme with suite and straight and debt) A moth is not a moth in mother, Nor both in bother, broth in brother.

And here is not a match for there, Nor dear and fear for bear and pear, And then theres dose and rose and lose Just look them up and goose and choose, And cork and work and card and ward And font and front and word and sword. And do and go, then thwart and cart. Come, come, Ive hardly made a start. A dreadful language: Why, man alive, Id learned to talk when I was five. And yet to write it, the more I tried, I hadnt learned it at fifty-five. What a fabulous poem! But such a shame no-one knows the author/s. So yes, English is crazy, and we have poems like this to remind us!

Polls

English Everywhere

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

Series 3 Series 2 Series 1

Trivia

1. How many native English speakers are there worldwide?

=380 million

2. Where is English originated? =Northwest Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands 3. Where is English originally spoken? =England 4. How is English spread throughout the world? =By the extensive influence of Great Britain and the United
Kingdom from the 18th century, via the British Empire, and of the United States since the mid-20th century.

5.

How many words are there in the English language? = There is no single sensible answer to this question. It's impossible to count the number of words in a language, because it's so hard to decide what actually counts as a word.