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THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Posted Date: 02 Nov 2007 Resource Type: Articles/Knowledge Sharing Category: Education
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Posted By: dominicyuvan Member Level: Silver
Rating:  Points: 5
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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 blouse, 2 blice?
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 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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