Lounge thread

So why is a goose geese and moose are not meese?

That is all.
Thank you.

 

For the same reasons that you park in a driveway and drive on a parkway.

 

you land on an airstrip and take off on a runway

 

Congress can not make progress.

 

I thought it was the monkey dancing on the podium whilst we all throw coins...

 

gooses and mooses, not monkies and coins

 

No moose is a collective singular so many moose are moose, just as many sheep are sheep not 'sheeps'.
English is just a weird language

http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=GVLSm2ikpFc&feature=related

 

well you can call it what you want, but it still doesnt make sence. goose and moose geese and meese, but moose are not meese. not really a matter of it being weird, its a matter of it not making sence. sheep, deer, fish; they are different. goose and moose is a matter of one letter and all of a sudden its a "collective singular" and the plural form of the word is changed. goose is still geese but moose is no longer meese and i dont understand the logic as to why.


"the moose IS eating a dog over there" moose is still just a noun. "the moose ARE eating a dog over there" now it becomes a group of moose simply because of the word 'are'. a collective noun is something like the word 'team'. you cant have a team of one person. a team becomes a team after there are 2 or more people. and even though the people are seperate entities, the 'team' is still referenced as one noun; a collective noun. "the team went to its game". Yes, you can say "the team went to their game" but you can't say "the team are in the playoffs" it's "the team IS in the playoffs" referencing the 'team' as one noun instead of a group of nouns such as a person is a singular noun and people is a collective noun; you cant have people without more than one person. with 'are' you would have to say "the teamS are in the playoffs" there are variations to this concept with different words. 'moose' on the other hand is still just moose. there are no mooses or meese. it all depends on the next 'are' or 'is' to determine the relative quantity.

another example is 'group'. you cant have a group of people without more than one person. so when do people become a group? when they act as one entity. and it is when the group acts as one entity that the word becomes a collective noun. "the group went to the bar" "the people went to the bar". we know just by looking at the words 'group' and 'people' that the 'group' is together in some way. however, there are 'groupS'. "split the office into groups" we know the groups are separate entities now.

all in all, moose is still just moose no matter what way you look at it. deer are just deer and fish are just fish and i dont think any of it makes sence when even collective nouns like team and group have their exceptions.

 

OK found it at last :-D google you rock :major

CRAZY ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Let's face it -- English is a crazy language. There is no egg in
eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in
pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries
in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't
sweet, are meat.

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.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't
groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why
isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2
meese? One index, 2 indices?

Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend, that
you comb through annals of history but not a single annal? If you have
a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do
you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preacher praught? If a vegetarian eats
vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? If you wrote a letter,
perhaps you bote your tongue?

Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an
asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a
play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have
noses that run and feet that smell? Park on driveways and drive on
parkways?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man
and wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites,
while quite a lot and quite a few are alike? How can the weather be
hot as hell one day and cold as hell another.

Have you noticed that we talk about certain things only when they are
absent? Have you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful gown? Met
a sung hero or experienced requited love? Have you ever run into
someone who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable? And where
are all those people who ARE spring chickens or who would ACTUALLY
hurt a fly?

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 clock goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the
creativity of the human race (which, of course, isn't a race at
all). That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when
the lights are out, they are invisible. And why, when I wind up my
watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it.

 

An essay full of questions doesn't work man. There are a bunch of examples of how we butchered the English language which is pretty neat, but no real answers except for, it is what it is. theres a thin line between creativity and stupidity and the whole thing sits on the center. im just going to make my own language. itll be called Steve.

 

Then you can talk to yourself :-D

 

Well my wife, who is Swedish, gets stuck on different English colloquialisms all the time. No matter how many times I explain it, she still says, "It a piece of pie", instead of "It's a piece of cake" when talking about something done easily. And still persists in saying "As easy as cake", instead of " As easy as pie". I still can't justify why the sayings are like that - they just are! LOL