English

Author
Discussion

johnnywgk

Original Poster:

2,579 posts

181 months

Tuesday 23rd August 2016
quotequote all
Fish fishes, math maths. Help needed, I go with fish and math. What is correct. Help, I'm not that bright at this. I can handle the stick but would like answers. Thanks

TorqueDirty

1,500 posts

218 months

Tuesday 23rd August 2016
quotequote all
Fish maths. Not only are these the correct plurals of each word (UK English as opposed to the dreadful American version) but it also the pastime of a few very clever Turbot.

LeoZwalf

2,802 posts

229 months

Tuesday 23rd August 2016
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Whilst English grammar is fairly easy, the pronunciation and spelling are difficult to learn. Read through this, it makes you realise how ridiculous lots of our spellings are and how so much doesn't match up or play to any rules:


Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

marshalla

15,902 posts

200 months

Tuesday 23rd August 2016
quotequote all
Fish are just fish, like sheep are just sheep, but maths is a shortened form of mathematics.

johnnywgk

Original Poster:

2,579 posts

181 months

Tuesday 23rd August 2016
quotequote all
Thanks

GroundEffect

13,819 posts

155 months

Tuesday 23rd August 2016
quotequote all
Actually, Math came before maths. Technically the first is correct. We just use the second.

A lot of of what the Americans use for English just makes more sense - Mr Webster did have some good ideas in simplifying our stupid language. Thru rather than Through. Program rather than programme.

Impasse

15,099 posts

240 months

Tuesday 23rd August 2016
quotequote all
GroundEffect said:
A lot of of what the Americans use for English just makes more sense - Mr Webster did have some good ideas in simplifying our stupid language. Thru rather than Through. Program rather than programme.
We use both versions of program/programme. It just depends on what it is you're describing. Also, in scientific circles the term fishes can be used in some circumstances. It's all very clear confusing.

xRIEx

8,180 posts

147 months

Tuesday 23rd August 2016
quotequote all
GroundEffect said:
A lot of of what the Americans use for English just makes more sense - Mr Webster did have some good ideas in simplifying our stupid language. Thru rather than Through.
I notice they didn't change 'tough' to 'tuff', 'thought' to 'thort' or 'though' to 'tho', tho. Nor 'weight' to 'wait', or 'height' to 'hight'.

marshalla

15,902 posts

200 months

Tuesday 23rd August 2016
quotequote all
xRIEx said:
I notice they didn't change 'tough' to 'tuff', 'thought' to 'thort' or 'though' to 'tho', tho. Nor 'weight' to 'wait', or 'height' to 'hight'.
tuf, thawt (or thinked depending on which meaning you want to convey), wate, hite could be better.

geeks

9,121 posts

138 months

Tuesday 23rd August 2016
quotequote all
Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.

Hilts

4,383 posts

281 months

Tuesday 23rd August 2016
quotequote all
Fish and maths.

Anyone that says otherwise is either a wker or american or an american wker.

xjay1337

15,966 posts

117 months

Tuesday 23rd August 2016
quotequote all
Plural of Goose is Geese.
But how come the plural of Moose is not Meese?


marshalla

15,902 posts

200 months

Tuesday 23rd August 2016
quotequote all
Hilts said:
Fish and maths.

Anyone that says otherwise is either a wker or american or an american wker.
What about someone who uses "either" with more than 2 options?

TwigtheWonderkid

43,248 posts

149 months

Tuesday 23rd August 2016
quotequote all
xjay1337 said:
Plural of Goose is Geese.
But how come the plural of Moose is not Meese?
And why is mongooses the plural of mongoose?

227bhp

10,203 posts

127 months

Tuesday 23rd August 2016
quotequote all
GroundEffect said:
Actually, Math came before maths.

How do you know this?

GetCarter

29,358 posts

278 months

Tuesday 23rd August 2016
quotequote all
227bhp said:
GroundEffect said:
Actually, Math came before maths.

How do you know this?
1+1 equals 2

Nice work Leo. My Mrs knew it, I didn't.

GetCarter

29,358 posts

278 months

Tuesday 23rd August 2016
quotequote all
geeks said:
Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.
Impressive smile

dudleybloke

19,717 posts

185 months

Tuesday 23rd August 2016
quotequote all
A fly and a flea in a flue
Were imprisoned, so what could they do?
Said the fly, "Let us flee!" "Let us fly!" said the flea.
And they flew through the flaw in the flue.
Said the flea to the fly as he flew through the flue,
"There's a flaw in the floor of the flue"
Said the fly to the flea as he flew through the flue.

GetCarter

29,358 posts

278 months

Tuesday 23rd August 2016
quotequote all
dudleybloke said:
A fly and a flea in a flue
Were imprisoned, so what could they do?
Said the fly, "Let us flee!" "Let us fly!" said the flea.
And they flew through the flaw in the flue.
Said the flea to the fly as he flew through the flue,
"There's a flaw in the floor of the flue"
Said the fly to the flea as he flew through the flue.
..and I'd just squash the fkers.

Pistom

4,916 posts

158 months

Tuesday 23rd August 2016
quotequote all
Brilliant - learn English on PH.

Love it.