Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Fixing the English Language

All I ask for is consistency. Today's topic will be that of removing exceptions from pluralizing words in the English language. First, the plural forms of "oo" words should have no exceptions (and plural "ee" words should have no exceptions for their singular form either). Examples include: foot -> feet, goose -> geese, and etc. Secondly, the plural form of all "ouse" nouns should be pluralized uniformly to "ice" words. Examples include: mouse -> mice, louse -> lice, etc. I conclude my recommendations by suggesting that we also pluralize our articles to further clarify the words used, and to avoid confusions that arise in the English language due to the superabundance of homonyms. Maybe using these rules in a story will help all understand how they add clarity to communication...

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There once was a disfigured man with three feet named Podshur. His only friends were his four geese, three meese, and a shoop. Having no other comrades nor associates, he spent all his free time rereading thes beek he checked out from the library before he had been banished.

His exile seemed arbitrary and unfair. It really wasn't even Podshur's fault he had soiled thes librarians' blice. Thes trees on either side of the path cast uneven shadows making it difficult to notice any obstacles in the path. As Podshur neared the library, one of thes exposed reet of the gnarled and knotty Bristlecone Pine troos (the landmark from which the Bristlecone Library Branch obtained its name) caught his second left foot. As he tripped he screamed loud enough to startle nearby field grice airborne. Podshur expected his brief splaying lunge to end with a thud, but it was much softer than that. The shade both made the ground difficult to see clearly and prevented thes mud puddles from thes recent spring fleed from drying. Podshur collected his wits and looked up slowly. The timing was awful. The cleaner's deliver boy had rounded the corner just as Podshur went face first into the puddle directly in front of him. The boy stood motionless, boy and blice now splattered with mud.

Before Podshur could raise himself to his feet and wipe his hands off on the back of his tricer, both of thes entry deer at the front of the library swung wide open on their hinges and out poured an excitable crowd of onlookers. Several children had seen the event from thes reading neek in the windows and had called it to everyone else's attention. Before long it looked like a faceoff -- Podshur, his geese, meese, and the shoop versus a mob. Needless to say, Podshur didn't like the jeering leek they were giving him

The fiery and impatient head librarian Ms. Haatemper, saw thes spotted blice and refused to hear any explanation of the events or any apologies. She threw her hand in the air in a demand for silence that hushed even thes owls’ heet and sent mice scurrying. The indignant Ms. Haatemper, lacking in common sense and sound judgment, dragged poor Podshur by his ears inside the library so she could punish him. Short tempers were further inflamed when thes wooden fleer in the library were soiled by Podshur’s muddy beet. His punishment started with having to clean all thes fleer of all thes reem in the building – even those he did not dirty. Though he jumped through all thes heep of punishment that Ms. Haatemper could devise, the final punishment was banishment.

The townspeople aggravated the unhappy situation. Nobody would buy the fabric he made for a living, causing his leem to sit idle. He was not allowed to swim in any of thes peel in any of thes surrounding neighborheed. Though he loved all kinds of ethnic feed, thes town keek wouldn’t make him any food. The grocers wouldn't sell him any food either. He survived on mostly plain rice and beans, making the food last longer by slowly eating thes rice one grain of long-grained enriched white rouse at a time. Fortunately for him, he had a large cellar full of dry geed, or he might have starved. He tried to work outdeer with the farmer’s chickens, but even they would peck and taunt him whenever he walked into any of thes keep. About the time his dry geed were running out, he finally was allowed to reenter society working indeer as a part-time hicekeeper for several of his neighbors.

Poor Podshur.

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See how much clearer that is?

4 comments:

Adam said...

So how would you pluralize poo? Would it be pee? I think this could be a source of confusion...

Crutches said...

You bet. You would pluralize poo to "pee". There would be no confusion because you would singularize pees to "poos" (not that anyone ever pluralizes either word).

In the future, keep your scatological comments to yourself. Inappropriate comments are subject to removal from the blog. :)

Hokie said...

You are just such a prolific writer that I struggle to say anything worthy of your spot…nevertheless I will make a comment.

I remember watching a film on prairie grouse in 10th grade and I remember the birds being somewhat like chickens, as in not so much flying, not that chickens don’t really fly, but they are not robins…and I thought perhaps I could refute the part about the flying grice in your story, however I did my homework and discovered that you are not to be corrected in you knowledge of anything…from unraveling the mess that we call English to being familiar with animals such as field grice. So congrats on a well thought out, full of knowledge example of how to fix the English language.

Anonymous said...

David, I love this story so much I want to buy your first book, and you must of course include the story in it. Seriously, you are not simply an engineer, my friend. You are a genius.