- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
In an ESL classroom in Beijing, a bright student named Lin raised her hand.
“Teacher,” she said, “I found a pattern. teach → taught, catch → caught. So past tense replaces ‘-ch’ with ‘-ght’ and adds ‘au.'”
“Good observation,” said the teacher.
Lin smiled and began applying her rule. preach → praught. reach → raught. bleach → blaught.
The teacher’s face fell.
“Those are… not words, Lin.”
“But the pattern—”
“Works exactly twice. Then English changes its mind.”
Lin stared at her notebook. “So it’s not a pattern. It’s a coincidence.”
“Yes.”
“Do you have many of these?”
The teacher thought about mouse/mice but house/houses, goose/geese but moose/meese, ox/oxen but fox/foxen. “Lin,” she said, “it might be faster if I just gave you a list of words where English is lying to you.”
“How long is the list?”
The teacher sighed. “Longer than the lesson.”
Log in to reply.