JULY 9 • 2020 | 5

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for openers
Not A Singular Message

We may have heard that 
“More is better.” In deal-
ing with our 
English lan-
guage, however, 
we learn that 
making “more” 
can be con-
fusing. There 
seems to be lit-
tle consistency 
when forming plurals. (Yes, 
there are “rules,” but the 
exceptions can be daunting.)
Do not go by sound or 
similarity of spelling. Booth 
will be booths, but tooth 
becomes teeth. More than 
one boot? Boots. More than 
one foot? Feet! (Beet would 
not work for boot because we 
have already granted a red 
vegetable with that name.)
One mouse is unnerving; 
several mice mean an infes-

tation as well as confusion. 
This also works for louse and 
lice. However, you can see 
one moose or many moose 
— no change. (Mice won’
t 
work here as a plural since 
we have given the rodents 
that form.) One roof, many 
roofs; one hoof, however, 
leads to many hooves.
Some of our words change 
form altogether. One child, 
many children; one person, 
many people. If you are try-
ing to work with a word that 
has come to us from Latin, 
you will end up with one cac-
tus, many cacti. One fungus 
can lead to many fungi. Just 
so, one hippopotamus leads 
us to several hippopotami. 
(See the picture of the rhi-
noceri?) Is it any wonder that 
we are now most accepting 
of cactuses, hippopotamuses 

and funguses? 
Some of our words that 
seem plural in spelling but 
represent a single item are 
still treated as if plural (still 
with me?) Therefore, we treat 
glasses (item used for seeing 
better), pants and scissors as 
plural words and give them 
plural verbs when used in 
sentences. (One other warn-
ing about scissors: Do not 
run with them!)
You can refer to an index 
but be wary of many indices 

(in-de-cees). Ready for more 
confusion? One basis may 
lead to many bases (base-
ees), which when looking at 
the word makes one think 
of places on a baseball dia-
mond. The pronunciation 
differs though. (See why 
reading aloud can be prob-
lematic?)
Just remember that if “one 
is good” may not be better if 
you have to struggle to find 
the right word. Just get used 
to saying “a lot” of them. 

continued on page 6

Sy Manello
Editorial
Assistant

essay
What If …
W

hat if, in the 1930s, 
Jews had protested 
at the White House 
demanding more help from the 
Roosevelt administration and 
higher quotas 
for Jewish immi-
grants, especially 
children?
What if Jews 
had launched a 
boycott of the 
Ford Motor Co. 
when its found-
er, Henry Ford, published his 
anti-Semitic newspaper, The 
Dearborn Independent, and pro-
moted the Protocols of the Elders 

of Zion?
What if Jews had taken to 
the streets to picket the United 
Nations after it adopted a res-
olution that Zionism equals 
racism and took many other 
anti-Israel, anti-Jewish actions?
What if Jews had applied 
high-profile public pressure 
on the Catholic Church to 
force it to take Father Charles 
Coughlin, the World War II 
radio priest, off the air given his 
virulent anti-Semitic messages?
What if … what if … there 
are so many of these that can 
be posed given the history of 
Jewish activism — or more 
accurately the lack thereof — in 
the face of anti-Semitism.
It is important to dissect these 

issues because Jews in general, 
to this day, have never learned 
that anti-Semitism — all bigot-
ry, racism, xenophobia — can 
only be defeated by strong con-
frontations.
We have never done so his-
torically, and we don’
t do so 
even today. We frown on tactics 
such as pickets, boycotts and 
public condemnation, no matter 
how virulently we are attacked.
For instance, even in the ’
30s, 
leaders like Hillel Kook (also 
known as Peter Bergson), a 
Zionist political activist, and the 
playwright Ben Hecht, among 
others, were ostracized from 
mainstream Jewish organiza-
tions for their “unacceptable” 
political activism in trying to 

call attention to the Holocaust.
They organized mass meet-
ings at Madison Square Garden 
in New York and placed ads in 
major newspapers, only to be 
condemned by more “moder-
ate” Jewish activists.
In more recent years, when 
Rabbi Avraham (Avi) Weiss 
took to the streets for various 
Jewish causes, he was, basically, 
shunned and ignored by the 
mainstream Jewish body politic.
We seemed to have learned 
little in our long history of 
fighting anti-Semitism and 
xenophobia through the ages.
Consider the present atmo-
sphere, which is witnessing a 
troubling increase in anti-Sem-
itism. The Anti-Defamation 

Berl Falbaum