| 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." |
