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 index, 2 indices? 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 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? 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.
W H Y C O P S H A T E Y O U <<<<&l <
-if you have to ask get out of the way-
Have you ever been stopped by a traffic cop and, while he was
writing a ticket or giving you a warning, you got the feeling that
he would just love to yank you out of the car, right through the
window, and smash your face into the front fender?...
