My Spanish tutor, Sheila, gently says, "I'm sorry," when I complain about inconsistencies in Spanish: For example, it's bad enough that all nouns have gender, but how can the word for dress (el vestido) be masculine? Where's the logic in that?
Of course, I have long recognized the illogicalities of English, which Sheila assures me is a far more difficult language to learn. I have this poem in my files:
Asylum for the verbally insaneAuthor unknown by request
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,
Why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
(To see the whole poem, click here.)
Recognizing that all languages can be inconsistent helps me in my struggle to learn Spanish. It also helps me empathize with my students, who sometimes get frustrated when language doesn't follow a logical pattern.
The next time I find myself gently correcting a student who is looking for logic in all the wrong places, I might just follow Sheila's lead and start my explanation with "I'm sorry." If it helps me feel better about the inconsistencies in Spanish, it just might make them feel better, too.
This lesson (and next month's) will show you how to use apostrophes, a punctuation mark that seems to confuse writers. There are only a few rules about apostrophes, and once you understand them, you'll have no trouble using apostrophes correctly.