why do we pronounce the word goose, when plural its geese. but if you say moose its not meese?

Answer 1

english is an odd language that often makes no sense in terms of spelling and phonetics. Consider:

Ghoti actually spells "fish" - gh as in tough, o as in women, and ti as in nation.

And here's an interesting poem ....

When the English tongue we speak
Why is break not rhymed with freak?
Will you tell me why it’s true
We say sew, but likewise few?
And the maker of a verse,
Cannot rhyme his horse with worse?
Beard is not the same as heard,
Cord is different from word,
Cow is cow, but low is low,
Shoe is never rhymed with foe.
Think of hose and dose and lose,
And think of goose and yet of choose,
Think of comb and tomb and bomb,
Doll and roll and home and some.
And since pay is rhymed with say,
Why not paid with said I pray?
Think of blood and food and good;
Mould is not pronounced like could.
Wherefore done, but gone and lone -
Is there any reason known?
To sum up all, it seems to me
Sounds and letters don’t agree.

Answer 2

These are nouns that form the plural differently. They are known as irregular plural forms. Just like goose: you say one goose but two geese. There are some that have the same singular and plural form just like Moose and sheep.

Moose is most probably the simplification of the Algonquian word "moosu" meaning "he trims smoothly", referring to the fact that moose strip and eat the bark (= l’écorce) from trees.

Algonquian (a group of Native North American languages that are, or were, spoken in central and eastern Canada and parts of the central and eastern United States.)

Answer 3

The answer lies in the word origins or etymologies. Goose is an Old English word and Old English came under a heavy French influence after the Norman Invasion, where as moose is an American word adapted from a Native American word. There are no moose in England, there nearest similar creature lives in Northern Eurasian and is commonly called an elk.

Answer 4

English evolved from a conglomerate of several folk languages, including Old English, Gaelick, and numerous colloquials... so unlike the more Latin-based languages, no one ever sat around and devised a cohesive set of rules for the language until fairly late in its evolution. Once it came time to make some logical sense out of it all, it proved impossible to try to erase the inconsistencies from our language and break old habits, so English was left as it was, with all of its vast lists of exceptions and inconsistencies. And common animal names are one big area of exceptions, in terms of how the words are pluralized. Not sure why that is... perhaps, due to our hunter roots, we view a set of animals as its own semi-singular entity rather than a collection of stand-alone items, so they don't get the classic -s at the end to make it plural.

Answer 5

A root has no reet yet a foot has feet. While wish wishes grants, a fish as a fish stands. A goose if in flock is geese yet you never turn one mangoose into two mangeese. Tell me, don't you find it absurd that you can have oxen but not boxen?

Answer 6

The english language is VERY confusing, think how hard it must be for foreigners to learn it all. Think how many words sound the same, are spelled the same, but, have different meanings !

Answer 7

Variations in the dead language from which the word was derived.
The reason Octopus plural is Octopuses, not Octopedes.

Answer 8

Stephen Pinker has very well explained this in his famous Words and Rules Theory.

You may find the link below useful.

Answer 9

Because meese is for a mouse, where have you been?

Answer 10

It is just one of the idiosyncrasies of the wonderful English language.