The English Language

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? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem
crazy that you can make amends but not one amend?

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?

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? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,
while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

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 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.


.

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