August 31, 2006

Oof.

Filed under: Uncategorized — Jim @ 9:18 pm

I got to thinking about the word “hoof’. Don’t ask me why. It’s not as if I were this lady or this gentleman who regularly deal with ungulates. Hell, I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a live, close-up look at a hoof.

OK. I’ll get to the silly point.

I learned in school that the plural of the word “hoof” is “hooves”.** Hooves? How crazy is that?

Why then doesn’t a roofer repair multiple “rooves” instead of “roofs”?

Why aren’t more than one “poof” called “pooves”?

Perhaps a bunch of “goofs” should be “gooves”.

Why wouldn’t two “woofs” by a dog be called “wooves”?

Or, why wouldn’t two “spoofs” be two “spooves”?

Flipping the matter around, why isn’t one of many “grooves” called a “groof”?

There’s simply no accounting for the caca that occupies my cruller sometimes.

** I know … The dictionary also lists “hoofs” as a plural form of “hoof”, but I think “hooves” came first. Anyway, that’s the way I learned it, and it’s my blog.

Powered by WordPress