Senseless Banter...

So, a little wet there in Wales, eh Plantoid? LOL! Love the poem! Still fun to get away?

This poem shall become my fav if El Nino shows up this winter.

Bummer of a vacation. I read your poem to my wife and we had a good laugh! Back in about 1990 we went to the Bahamas just in time for  Tropical Storm. Your poem is very fitting to that trip.
 At least you have a good sense of humor about it.
 Craig

Very cute poem!

Her's another poem I don't know who wrote or where it comes from  it but I do like it. I'd like to thank the author/s whoever they are.

ONLY THE ENGLISH COULD HAVE INVENTED THIS LANGUAGE

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 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 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!

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?

Bravo!

Had never read the entire poem before...  whew!

Does make you wonder, though........ 

I never knew we were so clever.

Very cute! I liked the rhyming part best, but it's a fun read.

Excellent!!!! Love it!!!!

Never heard that entire verse Plantoid. 

My mother came to this country from Sicily at the age of 12 and learned English well enough but she was always baffled by its structure.  Italian is pretty straightforward in contrast.  Like the word "enough"..  How is it that gh is pronounced like f.

She was very amusing.  She would listen to a show called the Breakfast club and the comedian would tell a story and she would try to repeat it, using different words, so the story wasn't funny.  She was perplexed  "It means the same thing" she would say of the words she substituted.

Ah memories.

Rosina: I remember an old English comedy film starring Will Hay who was training to be a spy in England and he had to learn the various pronunciations of any - ough word.

Off the top of my head -

enough     uff
tough
enough
rough

slough      ow
bough

cough      off

lough       ock

bought     awt
brought

But then, I am English born and bread so I think nothing of it. Until I really think about it.

Being English born & bread shows you've been away from here far too long .

I'm Yorkshire born & bred

@plantoid wrote:Being English born & bread shows you've been away from here far too long .

I'm Yorkshire born & bred

I caught that bread/bred mistake, but not quick enough.

And the one concerning adverb use?

Pedant !

I certainly am!

I heard a one-liner that I thought was worth sharing:
"Common sense is a flower that doesn't grow in everyone's garden."

Docwas

That's for sure....lol

Very well said!

Yep!