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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"
You lovers of the English language might enjoy this.
There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than
any other two-letter word, and that is "UP."
It's easy to understand UP , meaning toward the sky or at the
top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we
wake UP? At a meeting, why does a topic come UP ? Why do we
speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it
UP to the secretary to write UP a report ?
We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room,
polish UP the silver; warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the
kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car.
At other times the little word has real special meaning. People
stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and
think UP excuses. To be dressed is one
thing but to be dressed UP is special.
And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it
is stopped UP. We open UP a store in the morning but we close
it UP at night.
We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP! To be knowledgeable
about the proper uses of UP , look the word UP in the
dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4
of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions. If you
are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways
UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if
you don't give UP ,you may wind UP with a hundred or more.
When it threatens
to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When the sun comes out we
say it is clearing UP .
When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP.
When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry UP .
We could go on, but I'll wrap it UP for now, cause my time is
UP ,
so...Time to shut UP .
Thanks to Tony and Lesley for these! |
