Plurals
The manager of a large city zoo was drafting a letter to order a pair of
animals. He sat at his computer and typed the following sentence: "I
would like to place an order for two mongooses, to be delivered at your
earliest convenience."
He stared at the screen, focusing on that odd word mongooses. Then he
deleted the word and added another, so that the sentence now read: "I
would like to place an order for two mongeese, to be delivered at your
earliest convenience."
Again he stared at the screen, this time focusing on the new word, which
seemed just as odd as the original one. Finally, he deleted the whole
sentence and started all over. "Everyone knows no full- stocked zoo
should be without a mongoose," he typed. "Please send us two of them."