We saw plenty of geese when we visited Salford Quays… the word itself is Old English and connected to a lot of other European languages who have a similar name for this loud bird, goos, gos, gans, gas… The word can apparently mean a female person, or a silly person, or a sort of iron tailors use… and it can also mean to pinch someone’s bum! The unusual plural, goose/geese, is one of those things that some English words do, change their vowel sound: man/men, mouse/mice,tooth/ teeth. foot/feet, louse/lice… Thee is a reason for it, all to do with strong and weak sounds, but I got a little lost in understanding the explanation I read. There is the nursery rhyme ‘Gosey, goosey, gander…’ which has a more horrid origin than you would imagine for a children’s song; it’s all about binding old people and literally throwing them downstairs in the hope they will be damaged… the reason? They didn’t saytheir prayers, or maybe the said the wrong sort of prayers!
Lois Elsden 
When our Canada geese fly south for the winter they are in a Vee formation. One side of the Vee is always longer than the other. Have you ever wondered why?
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It must be an amazing sight… but no why is one side longer than the other? I’ve heard that wild haggis have one leg longer than the other because they live in the mountains….
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One side of the Vee is longer because there are more geese on that side. he he he. gotcha Wois
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Groan!!!!!
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Betcha tell that joke in the Dolphin. Betcha!
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I think I have to! Quiz night tonight… maybe that’ll be one of the questions!
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