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.“
