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THIS CRAZY 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,
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 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?
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.
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