CENTURY AGO: It was in October 1909 that this poem, “The English
Language,” appeared in The Bradford Era:

“We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes;

But the plural of ox should be oxen, not oxes.

Then one fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,

Yet the plural of mouse should never be meese.

You will find a lone mouse or a whole nest of mice,

But the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,

Why shouldn’t the plural of pan be called pen?

The cow in the plural may be cows or kine,

But a bow, if repeated, is never called bine.

And the plural of vow is vows, never vine.

If I speak of a foot and you show me your feet,

And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?

If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,

Why shouldn’t the plural of booth be called beeth?

If the singular’s this and the plural is these,

Should the plural of kiss ever be nicknamed keese?

Then one would be that and three would be those,

Yet the plural of hat would never be hose.

And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.

We speak of a brother and also of brethern,

But then we say mother, we never say methren.

Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,

But imagine the feminine, she, shis and shim!

So the English I think you all will agree,

Is the strangest language you ever did see.”

ONE MORE: Anne Ferro has a post script to our ongoing columns
about swimming holes around Bradford. She writes, “”I remember my
uncles and brothers swimming at a hole they called ‘Fathom Deep.’
It was toward the campus up from the spillway.”

This sounds to us like the place others have called “Maple
Deep.”