English doesn't do what it says
Let's face it, English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant,
no ham in hamburger, and neither pine nor apple in pineapple.
English
muffins weren't invented in England and French fries did not
originate
in France. Sweetmeats are candies, while sweetbreads, which aren't
sweet
at all, 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 the
guinea
pig is neither from Guinea nor 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, two geese. One moose two
meese?
Doesn't it seem strange that you can make amends but not one
amend, or
that you can comb through the annals of history but not a single
annal?
If you have a bunch of odds and ends, and get rid of all of them
but
one, 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 but 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 antonyms
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 ever noticed that we talk about certain things only
when
they're 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?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which
hour
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.
