English
is a Crazy Language
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Let's
face it - - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in
hamburger; neigher is 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, two geese.
So one moose, two meese? One index, two indices? Go figure. 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 a 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 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. - Author Unknown
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