Does anybody know how come English retained some irregular plurals (feet, mice, oxen, children,

[Lydia Leftcoast]

1. Irregularities are most likely to be retained in very common words

Man-men.
Woman-women
Go-went-gone
Do-did-done

Yes, I know. We don't talk about oxen that much anymore, but at the time when English was becoming standardized, most people were rural, and oxen were commonly used as beasts of burden. And there were undoubtedly more mice running around then than there are now.

Then again, some very common words developed regular plurals, such as "shoe" (which used to be "shoen&quot and "book" (which would be "beech" if the old plural had been kept and developed normally).