Miscellany

I'm back, Byters.

Here is a belated Monday Miscellany . . .
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Caution: risque content ahead.
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Byter Graham sent me an item about the English language, below.  I have added a few items after Graham's contribution.

How to write good 

1. Avoid alliteration. Always. 

2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with. 

3. Avoid cliches like the plague. They're old hat. 

4. Comparisons are as bad as cliches. 

5. Be more or less specific. 

6. Writers should never generalise. 

Seven. Be consistent. 

8. Don't be redundant; don't use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous. 

9. Who needs rhetorical questions? 

10. Exaggeration is a. billion times worse than understatement. 

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WHY ENGLISH IS SO HARD

We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl 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.

If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my 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?

Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!

Anonymous

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