I am confused!

It's because language is so unique and so rich you can't put it in a box and make rules for everyone to follow. It's a product of a semantic evolution and it's too late to question it now. We just have to learn the rules, however irregular and intriguing they are...after all, learning a language can never be perfected unless one uses it in real life situations or in very practical terms. Meanwhile, it would be crazy to ask why the plural of ox is oxen, while fox is foxes, and so on. We just have to live with it however crazy they may sound. But this discussion is good because it has never been an issue to me until you discussed it. Nice day...

Why would it have to be 'humen' when 'huwomen' would be so much more descriptive of the species?

Because it implies more than one and it would be more sexist than just the "man" at the end of it! Bra burning feminists from the late 60's probably had something to do with it I reckon. Us guys may have had to give up on the men part at the time, but we at least managed to keep man there for now. We should change it to "Hupersons" just to be on the safe side in the future though. And for the record, yes, I do think that women should be allowed to drive tractors.

Join the club, that is why English is such a difficult language, then there are all those words spelled differently with different meanings but pronounced the same. Like (there), meaning place, I am going there. And (their) meaning belonging to someone, I am their cousin. Enjoy

alright, please let me try to answer this difficult english. LOL! maybe here's how:- 1) man is for male (plural is men) 2) woman is for female (plural is women) 3) human is for either one or both (so the word "human" includes both singular & plural) can you accept my explanation? LOL! now, please answer this question of mine below, i am very confused... LOL! if horrific means to make horrible, why terrific doesn't mean to make terrible?

lol theresa, where are all these ideas coming from? well, I think there isn't much pattern when it comes to singular and plural nouns. It's confusing for most people but since we learned all of these from childhood we get to use them without thinking much of how they had come up those words. But the most important thing to to know and learn about is the grammar and it's rules which is kinda hard to stick to sometimes when you just wanted to do pidgin English hee hee kidding... speak Taglish please wahahaha

well English is a funny language as "put" is different from "but" "do " is different from "go". If you see it that way may bepeople were not thinking when they were inventing this language. while to answer your question human has to be humane first in a group to ever think of them calling humen insteadof humans. That definately they are never and so may be thats the most reasonable answer to your question.

and mouse is mice, louse-lice, why not moose-mise?

I never figured that out either. It's like the plural of sheep is sheep. My favorite that I came up with years ago is shouldn't the plural of linguists be linguine?

maybe they are maggots.

Hi theresaaiza, English language is a complicated words to understand like this, If the plural of tooth is teeth shouldn't the plural of phone booth be phone beeth? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what the heck does a humanitarian eat? What do you think?

:) english is really funny language and many alphabets are silent which i can never understand the logic behind them like K in know or knee or P in pneumonia.. and many words sound so different like do and go when they are two alphabet words and both ending in O. so i dont find it amazing that there are humans and not humen on the earth.

Well English is a universal language and it has been adopted from various other languages from around the globe.There are no hard and fast rules in it except for grammar and that is why pronunciations are different for different words and singular and plural are also different .Though these sometimes look absurd but no one can really explain the reasons behind the different versions for different words,so in a way we have become habitual and known to these words and do not find them weird.

somebody likes the letter s so much that he insisted that if it can't be mans and womans at least make it humans. ;)

Yes right

I don't know who invented the English language either and it's really very confusing sometimes to get the proper terms for a a particular action.

hello Theresaaiza! You know what, i enjoy reading this thread/ discussion! he he.. i even enjoy the replies from other mylotters! truly, English is very complicated! he he

hi lotter your question is nice but iam sorry i dont have the answer. :)

A while back I stopped trying to make sense of it all. It is english, it is literally derived from EVERY other language on the planet. What ever once struck someones fancy became a word. Heck, Webster's even says "D'oh" is a word. So, I looked into and found out it don't matter. Proper spelling was only introduced something like 150-200 years ago. And if you want to make up a new word or phrase you are just practicing neologism. In the end of it all I truly believe that if who ever is reading/listening, understands, that is all that is important.

uhn... someone set these rules especially for man and woman~ maybe because human can divide into "men" and "women" what about call the person who set this rule? I will give you the number...XXXXXXX