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 were not invented in England or French fries in Prance 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 grocers don’t grace and hammers don’t ham” If the plural of tooth is teeth why is in the plural of booth beeth? One goose two geese So One moose two Meese One index two 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 annual? 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 horse full carriage or a strap full gown? Met a sung hero or experienced requited love? Have you ever run into someone 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 bum up as it bums 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 star it but when 1 wind up this Journal I end it.
Article extracted from this publication >> July 15, 1994
