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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 write 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 through 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 preacher 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? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have
noses that run and feet that smell? Park on driveways and drive on parkways?
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.
--Author unknown
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