Words and Thoughts: The Problem with Mongeese

Hello again, alleged readers!  What’s up?
Nope. Don’t like that that. Not my style. I don’t know where I got off with this “what’s up” business you saw there, and I am truly sorry you had to witness that. Let’s try again.

Hello again, alleged readers!
Much better. Classic. Simple. Direct.

Did you know that a meerkat is a member of the mongoose family??  I sure didn’t until I found out today!  “Today years old” as the youth say. I spent my entire morning at work today trying to determine if the plural of “mongoose” is “mongeese”, “mongooses”, or some combination of the two, like “mongeeses”, or like an ox / oxen thing where it’s “mongeesen”. Or!  Or!  “Mongeesenen”, like Knudsenen. Imagine if I were a mongoose, which I am not, but if I were: Stav Mongeesenen, Mongoose at Law. I’m not a lawyer, nor a mongoose, as mentioned, but if I were a mongoose, I feel like maybe I would have gone down the law school path.

A couple of life’s great “what if” questions right there:  What if I were a mongoose?  What if I were a lawyer?

I’d probably be taking a whole bunch of cases where the defendant is accused of eating a snake, I tell you what. But I guess I will never be able to know for sure.

Anyway, like I said, I spent all morning at work looking up what the plural of mongoose is. I still don’t have an answer to that question, but I did find out, like I said, that a meerkat is a mongoose!  And that’s absurd. I also, in my studies, learned that it is proper, and unoffensive to mongeesens to call a group of them any of the following:

    Pack
    Gang
    Mob
    Troop
    Business
    Delegation

It’s like:
Your assistant tells you, “Oh, here comes the delegation of mongeese; the gang of mongooses has arrived for their 4pm.”
“Send in the business!” you reply, “They’re here to discuss the Penske Deal.”
You greet them, “It’s my pleasure to welcome this esteemed pack of Mongeesi to my office this afternoon.”
And afterwards, as they’re walking out, “It truly was nice meeting with your whole flock!”  They don’t say anything at the time, but you don’t hear back from them for two weeks. Then you find out they’ve pulled their funding on the Penske Deal and brought their business, and their business, elsewhere. On your drive home that night, it hits you like a brick: you called them a “flock” as they were leaving, thus committing what is, in the world of mongoosen, is probably like the biggest faux pas you can imagine, I’d imagine. How could you have been so insensitive?  How could you have been so ignorant?

You don’t have the answers, and neither do I.