English is a Crazy Language...let's face it

[Studlover (imported)]

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,

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? 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 a 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 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.