This week I have a joke about a mongoose in the midi middle about how to write dates.

On the grammar girl Facebook page a reader named Anurag Chatrath said that my recent tip

about the plural of hip-apotomists made him think of a joke about a mongoose.

I thought I had heard every language joke out there, but I had never heard this one,

so I'm sharing it with you today.

Since then I found many versions on the internet, but this is how Anurag told it.

The keeper of a zoo wants to order two of these creatures from the keeper of another zoo,

so he begins to write kindly send us to mon geese since the plural of goose is geese.

But instinctively he realizes something is wrong and he decides to amend it.

He tears it up and writes again, kindly send us to mongooses since the plural is formed

normally by adding an S. Again though he's doubtful, so he re-writes it again, kindly

send us to mongoose, presuming that mongoose follows the example of sheep and deer which

remain unchanged in the plural.

Still, he is dissatisfied and tries mongoie, mongoosen, mongoosey and mongoice after the examples

of fungus, ox, bandit and mouse, changing in the plural to fungi, oxen, bandidi and mice

respectively.

But none of them look okay to him.

He finally writes kindly send us one mongoose and while you're at it, send us another one.

And as you can tell, that still makes me laugh, rewriting is a good solution sometimes.

And in case you're wondering, mongooses is the best choice according to dictionary.com

in a Google and Graham search.

And now on to dates.

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