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 nor 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. 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, 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 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? Park on driveways and drive on parkways? 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? And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it?
ha ha so true, and I am eternally grateful that it is my first language! I have just read a book if you're into the nerdy side of things, called "the Language instinct" by Steven Pinker which willl answer your light hearted questions seriously. I recommend it for biologists, linguists, neuroscientists, really most people who speak. I found it very good.
Love it but our spelling and how we pronounce words is even stranger. Wish someone could explain: come rhymes with dumb while dome rhymes with comb
And here's me, a Norwegian, trying to sink my teeth into this language that you who were brought up speaking it still wonder about! Bring out the straitjackets. They aren't even straight...
Doors marked push and pull are easy enough,but what do you do in an Englsih Hotel when you find a door marked "Lift"?
Haha! This is great. I'm going to rpint this out share with the midle school kids I work with. They like to ponder over things.
