Dos

After being in Peru this summer, I felt pretty comfortable with Spanish. I might even have gone so far as to say I was relatively "fluent"...

Portuguese has destroyed that.

But I received an email forward that put some perspective on my situation; at least I'm not learning English as my second or third 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,
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 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!

There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;
Neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren't invented in England .
Quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square,
And a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

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.

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?

--

So, in conclusion, I am glad English was my first language, I will promptly begin calling my mother "methren", and Brian Regan* is hilarious.

*Look up his comedy sketch about school.