Kind of had a delayed realization—your bit above also demonstrates the time depth and origins of English terms. “Goose” has an umlauted plural “geese” because it is a native word, descended from Common Germanic; “moose” is a borrowing from a Native American language (which one escapes me at the moment, sorry), so the umlaut—which is now much more highly marked in English, where the default plural is by far -s—was not applied to it.
“Irwin, what is the plural of ox?”
— “Oxen! The farmer used his oxen!”
“Brian, what is the plural of box?”
— “Boxen. I bought two boxen of donuts.”
“Irwin, what is the plural of goose?”
— “Geese! I saw a flock of geese!”
“Brian, what is the plural of moose?”
— “MOOSEN!”
You make the joke, but people do use boxen as a jargonistic plural for box in computing circles (“Linux boxen”).
Boxen is also the plural for box in the german language.
Wow, I had no idea! That’s awesome.
Kind of had a delayed realization—your bit above also demonstrates the time depth and origins of English terms. “Goose” has an umlauted plural “geese” because it is a native word, descended from Common Germanic; “moose” is a borrowing from a Native American language (which one escapes me at the moment, sorry), so the umlaut—which is now much more highly marked in English, where the default plural is by far -s—was not applied to it.