Shouldn’t cheese be the plural of choose? Must-read hilarious quirks of English language

When I began my United Nations career back in 1978 on the staff of the High Commissioner for Refugees, an American classmate from my graduate school sent me an intriguing Christmas card. Reacting to my new-found humanitarian career with a reference to my eating habits, he asked: “If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?”

It was a clever question because it got me thinking about the vagaries of the English language that make such observations possible. After all, vegetarians eat vegetables, but humanitarians don’t eat humans. And that’s not all: writers write, but grocers don’t groce. For that matter, fingers don’t fing, dangers don’t dang and hammers don’t ham. You can say your teacher taught well, but you can’t say the preacher praught well. If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth beeth? If one goose leads to two geese, why doesn’t one moose multiply into two meese? Conversely, shouldn’t cheese be the plural of choose?

Languages don’t have to always be rational, but English probably wins the irrationality prize. If a delivery man delivers items and a bag man carries bags, why is a fireman someone who puts out fires rather than starts them? Why are goods sent by ship called ‘cargo’, and those sent by road on a truck or lorry called a ‘shipment’? Why do we put cups in the ‘dishwasher’ and the dishes in the ‘cupboard’? Why do people ‘recite’ (lines) at a play, and ‘play’ (music) at a recital? Why do you park on driveways and drive on parkways? Why do noses run and feet smell?

The names of things in English defy all logic too. There is no egg in ‘eggplant’ nor ham in ‘hamburger’; neither apple nor pine in ‘pineapple’. Sweetmeats are candies, while sweetbreads, which are neither sugared nor made in a bakery, are not sweet but meat. A ‘guinea pig’ is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. English muffins were not invented in England nor French fries in France. When you skip work without seeking permission, the English call it ‘French leave’; the French refer to an unauthorised or irregular departure (without a proper polite farewell) with the expression ‘filer à l’anglaise’ (or Brexit, in short!). The Dutch have no idea what ‘going Dutch’ means, turkeys cannot be found in Turkey and ‘Red Indians’ were neither crimson-coloured nor from India.