Katie Doyle, Girl About Town

Sunday, Sept. 12, 2004 - 9:45 p.m.

So, yesterday was a bit of a downer. Sorry about that. I just have problems with my sheeplike status, sometimes.

Why isn't there a singular form of the word sheep? I mean, there is, and it's sheep, but sheep sounds plural. It does. You count sheep...more than one sheep. (Presumably, if you are counting something to fall asleep, you need to count more than one, otherwise, it's rather superfluous to do the counting, but anyway.) You see a herd of sheep; several sheep. It sounds really weird to see one and say, "hey, look, a sheep." It just sounds like there should be more than one there. I am entirely uncertain the plural of something should be allowed to be the same word as the singular. Maybe one sheep should be called a shep. Except that a shepherd watches over the sheep, so maybe he should be called a sheepherd. Which isn't that far from sheep herder, which is another term for the same thing, and shepherd is itself from the middle english words for sheep + herd, which was pronounced sheepherd (or maybe sheepheerd), so how did it become shepherd? And if sheepherd can become shepherd, why can't one sheep become shep? Or why can't we have sheep and sheeps? I personally think that would be far more logical and somewhat less confusing, especially to people in other countries who are learning to speak English and have been taught to make it plural by adding s and already say sheeps, anyway. And deers. Although deer, for some reason, is not confusing. How come you can say either fish or fishes for the plural, but not deers and sheeps? What's up with that? It seems rather arbitrary, if you ask me. (Well it does. I'm just sayin'.)

See, people? I am not afraid to ask the hard questions.

Peace out,
Katie

1 comments so far

*HUGS* TOTAL! give katiedoyle more *HUGS*
Get hugs of your own

Yesterday's News - Next Stop

In which Katie shares sad news - Wednesday, Apr. 01, 2015
In which Katie returns after a very long absence - Monday, Jun. 25, 2012
In which Katie pokes her head in and brushes some of the cobwebs away - Thursday, May. 06, 2010
In which Katie asks you to write your congressman again. - Monday, Jun. 02, 2008
In which Katie asks you to please click the link and send the message to protect the rights of artists - Wednesday, May. 21, 2008