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Month: March 2009

Fun: Plurals or Pluralii?

From Maarten Lippmann:

We’ll 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,
When couldn’t the plural of pan be called 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 called beet?

If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn’t the plural of booth be called beeth?
If the singular is this and plural is these,
Why shouldn’t the plural of kiss be nicknamed kese?

Then one may be that, and three may 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 all 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, thorough, slough, and through?

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; it’s said like bed, not bead;
For goodness sake, don’t 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.
And dear and fear for bear and pear.

And then there’s 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, I’ve hardly made a start.
A dreadful language? Why, man alive,
I’d learned to talk it when I was five.

And yet to write it, the more I tried,
I hadn’t learned it at fifty-five!

Snippet: Ok, who thinks I’m dead…

I was just looking up the dates of one of my namesakes who committed suicide (don’t ask), so I searched on Google for “richard chiswell suicide” (as you do): and my Twitter page came up as first result!

The word “suicide” doesn’t appear on my twitter feed (Google admits it only “appears in links pointing to this page”), so I want to know just who thinks I’m dead!

New Season Doctor Who Finale: De ja Who?

Do you remember the 3rd season of the “New Doctor Who” when they brought the previously-thought-deceased Master back to life for the season finale?
Do you remember the 4th season of the “New Doctor Who” when they brought all the “New Doctor’s companions” together, including the “trapped-in-parallel universe Rose Tyler” back for the season finale?

Hmm, two reasonably, but slightly unbelievable ideas both with characters who are “unbring-backable”.

Doctor Who Production Team: “Hey, why not combine BOTH ideas!”.

Yep, it seems the Doctor Who production company have thought that and for the 5th season finale (and David Tennant’s last episode), they are bringing back Billie “Rose Tyle” Piper, Catherine “Donna Noble” Tate, Freema “Martha Jones” Agyeman and The Master (who was shot dead, refused to regenerate and buried last time we saw him: although his ring was picked up by a female hand – but if he didn’t want to regenerate, why “hide his soul/being” in a ring?)

Hello, original ideas calling the Doctor Who production team! (who will still be headed by Russell T. Davis at that point, he leaves at the same time as Tennant).