Category Archives: fun

A Poem of Plurals and Pronouns

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,
Then 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

Thanks to Marilee for the poem.

A Poem for Editors

“The Naughty Preposition”

I lately lost a preposition:
It hid, I thought, beneath my chair.
And angrily I cried: “Perdition!
Up from out of in under there!”
Correctness is my vade mecum,
And straggling phrases I abhor;
And yet I wondered: “What should he come
Up from out of in under for?”
~Morris Bishop

Thanks to Marilee for the poem, which was originally published in the New Yorker in 1947.

Copy Editing: Business and Pleasure

This post combines my two loves: writing and editing. I recently started copy editing the Rambler, a national literary magazine that features nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. It’s published bimonthly, and I began with the November/December issue.

As any editor knows, it’s always a pleasure to work on something you actually enjoy reading. If you enjoy a good read too, I encourage you to check it out. Just don’t tell me if you find any errors.