The beauty of the English language

Wednesday, April 28th, 2010

Here at Touchnote we get personalised cards from all over the world and what we have noticed is that the majority of the time, people write their personalised messages in English, no matter where they are from. English is one of the most commonly spoken languages in the world and in many countries is the official second language taught. So wouldn’t you think that English would be one of the simplest and most straight forward languages for people to learn?

Well, you be the judge of that…

We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
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!

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.

Lets’s face it - English is a crazy language. But keep in mind you can write your personalised messages in any language when creating a Touchnote card so feel free to try something different!

The Touchnote Team.