TexasDesign

My mother tells me I struggled with spelling as a child; however, she needn’t remind me. I remember very well. Then, directly after college, when I served in the Peace Corps in Columbia, South America, all that changed: I suddenly acquired excellent spelling skills! The reason had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with the language in which I was communicating. Compared to English, Spanish spelling is extremely easy. “Sounding out” words works in Spanish; it is often useless in English. All this is by way of introducing this ExcitingWriting Advisory, a bit of fun doggerel I hope you enjoy. (I did not write it; if anyone knows who did, please e-mail me. A big thank you goes to Perry Steinhoff for sending this to me. He is a very thoughtful person.)

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