The english language is confusing!?

Question

Why is it that "House" is spelled H-O-U-S-E and more than one "house" is spelled H-O-U-S-E-S, but "mouse" is spelled M-O-U-S-E but more than one "mouse" is spelled M-I-C-E, not M-O-U-S-E-S. All we do is change the first letter? Any sggestions?

Answer 1

As a matter of fact, in older English the plural of "house" WAS something very much like "hice". We can still see this in German which has singular "Maus", plural "Maeuser" (mouse/mice) and singular "Haus", plural "Haeuser" (house/houses). German, in fact, preserves many older plural forms that English has done away with. (For instance, the relationship words Vater/Vaeter, Mutter/Muetter, Bruder/Brueder.)

Most of the older forms in English have done as "house" did, adopting the Modern English way of forming plurals by adding -(e)s. But there was a group of them -- foot/feet, goose/geese, tooth/teeth, louse/lice, man/men, etc. -- that did not make the change. Then there are those whose older forms may co-exist alongside the new forms, like the somewhat archaic form "brethren" (and if you have a King James Bible, you can find "kine" as the plural of "cow").

(Note that the -(e)n is another remnant of an older, Germanic way of forming the plural. We see it again in plurals like "oxen".)

Some of the older forms survive as "irregular plurals". Many of them do so because of the different vowel

Actually, the changed vowel in Old English plural noun forms (and various other parts of the language) was NOT invented as a way to mark the plural. It was an indirect result.

Here's how it happened:

1) In most of the ancient Germanic languages, adding a suffix with an i-vowel in it caused the vowel in the preceding syllable to change to be a bit more like the i-vowel ("vowel harmony" -- a comon, very natural change in human speech). This change is called "i-mutation" or "umlaut".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_umlaut

2) Old English had a whole system of case endings Some of these endings had i-vowels in them and caused the change in the preceding vowel noted in #1. (These changes took place in various forms, not just plurals.)

We can see the same sort of change in many other words that took various suffixes: hale/health, long/length, old/elder, eldest, food/feed.
http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/research/rawl/IOE/pronunciation.html#pronounce:imutation

3) The system of case endings died out amidst the massive changes that gave us Middle English (for which you may blame the Norman French invaders if you like!) But the vowel changes in many of these old noun forms survived.. Without the endings, the changed vowel itself began to function as a marker of the plural form.

4) The "new" system of forming plurals by adding -(e)s was adopted for MOST English nouns. But many of the most common, familiar words were NOT changed. (This is typical of human language. Note how all our irregular VERBS are COMMON words - have, be, bring, come, go... Rarer words are easily forced into a consistent pattern.)

Answer 2

English is a language that has mulitple influences including Latin, Romantic languages (French, etc.), and Germanic influences. The exceptions and nuances of the language can prove frustrating because they often are quite illogical. As a native English speaker I found it difficult to keep track of the gender bases in Romantic languages, but after a while it become a little more apparent.

Just keep working on the language, even native speakers get confused! The exceptions will become more natural in time.

Answer 3

Because the English language is a mutt. Unlike, for instance, Italian, which is based almost completely off of the Latin language, the English language is a mixture of Anglo Saxon, Latin (by way of french), Greek, and some others. The spellings of words don't follow rules because they are based on the rules of their country of origin.

Answer 4

The word house follows the general rule.
The word mouse is an exception to the rule

Answer 5

Learn spanish

Answer 6

Where did you come from??? lol J/k yeah its a bit confusing for those born outside the county!

Answer 7

You are talking about irregular plurals ! I have no idea what's with them but just don't call English confising OK!

Answer 8

I'm confused, are you arguing for changing "houses" to "hice"? Or are you arguing for changing "mice" to "mouses"? What about "louse"?

Answer 9

no suggestions, only more mysteries, why is the plural of moose still moose but the plural of goose is geese?

Answer 10

think that is confusing a single fish is called a F-I-S-H the plural of fis is also F-I-S-H