Words and Verse
Infernal Plurals
Please! Someone tell me why a house
Can have the plural houses
Although you have a single mouse
Which is two mice, not mouses .
And while we're on that very strain
Where mouse, I guess, is mice,
Why don't you tell me why the heck
We get no rouse from rice.
And yet again we find that dice
Are singular as die
But why, when someone catches lice,
Do they catch no white lie?
And while you have a single child
Who has two brother-children ,
Why do we have so many a wild
And having yet no wildren?
Yep, there's a moral to this verse
I'll tell it now to you…
"Don't douse the dice or rouse the rice
For that you just can't do
But mouse the mice and louse the lice
Because (and this is true)
Our English has an awful vice
(And note: no vouse) that shows
That oxen always kill the foxen.
In short, one never knows
These English plurals for, you see,
There's such irregularity!"
Can have the plural houses
Although you have a single mouse
Which is two mice, not mouses .
And while we're on that very strain
Where mouse, I guess, is mice,
Why don't you tell me why the heck
We get no rouse from rice.
And yet again we find that dice
Are singular as die
But why, when someone catches lice,
Do they catch no white lie?
And while you have a single child
Who has two brother-children ,
Why do we have so many a wild
And having yet no wildren?
Yep, there's a moral to this verse
I'll tell it now to you…
"Don't douse the dice or rouse the rice
For that you just can't do
But mouse the mice and louse the lice
Because (and this is true)
Our English has an awful vice
(And note: no vouse) that shows
That oxen always kill the foxen.
In short, one never knows
These English plurals for, you see,
There's such irregularity!"
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Infernal Plurals
Infernal Plurals
