The English Language

Let's face it -- English is a crazy language. There is no egg in

eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English

muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats

are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we

find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig

is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers rite but

fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural

of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese.

So one moose, 2 meese?

Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend,

that you comb thru annals of history but not a single annal? If you have a

bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call

it? If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats

vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? If you wrote a letter, perhaps

you bote your tongue?

Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an

asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play

and play at a recital? Send shipments by car and send cargo by ship? Have

noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man

and wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while

quite a lot and quite a few are alike? How can the weather be hot as hell

one day and cold as hell another?

Have you noticed that we talk about certain things only when they are

absent? Have you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful gown? Met a

sung hero or experienced requited love? Have you ever run into someone who

was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable? And where are all those people

who ARE spring chickens or who would ACTUALLY hurt a

fly?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your

house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it

out and in which an alarm clock goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the

creativity of the human race (which, of course, isn't a race at all). That is

why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out,

they are invisible. And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I

wind up this essay, I end it.

... English ain't bein' spoke no good no more

top