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? 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? 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 a wise
guy are opposites? 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, is not a race at all. That is why, when
the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are
invisible.
PS. - Why doesn't 'Buick' rhyme with 'quick'?
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