On Language
Dec. 18th, 2002 09:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
senoritafishSo I'm editing D.'s dock report and I have a list of fish species caught along with sardines and mackerel. Should they be singular or plural? Then again, what is the plural for some of them? Do you just add an "s" or is it the same word, or something completely different? Are you talking about a group of indivuals of the same species (where it would be "fish") or a group of different species (where the correct word would be "fishes"), the entire population as a whole ("sardine") or a bucket of them ("sardines")?
John used to work as a meat-cutter in an inner-city grocery store, and quite often worked with people whose native language was not English. He knew them well enough to tease them - if the plural of mouse is mice, what's the plural of house? If the plural of goose is geese, what's the plural of moose? What's the plural of sheep? Of goat?
English is so confusing - I was raised speaking it and I'm confused myself. Anyone who learns to speak it as a second language has my whole-hearted admiration. This makes me incredibly lazy to not speak anything else, since my three years of high school German has almost completely deserted me. All I can remember for certain is:
"Hallo, Jochen! Bist du im Garten?"
"Nein, wir sind hier, in die Garage. Wir putzen das Auto."
"Du bist fleißig! Ich bin sprachlos!"
"Du kanst helfen. Dort liegt ein Lappen."
John used to work as a meat-cutter in an inner-city grocery store, and quite often worked with people whose native language was not English. He knew them well enough to tease them - if the plural of mouse is mice, what's the plural of house? If the plural of goose is geese, what's the plural of moose? What's the plural of sheep? Of goat?
English is so confusing - I was raised speaking it and I'm confused myself. Anyone who learns to speak it as a second language has my whole-hearted admiration. This makes me incredibly lazy to not speak anything else, since my three years of high school German has almost completely deserted me. All I can remember for certain is:
"Hallo, Jochen! Bist du im Garten?"
"Nein, wir sind hier, in die Garage. Wir putzen das Auto."
"Du bist fleißig! Ich bin sprachlos!"
"Du kanst helfen. Dort liegt ein Lappen."
