English is a crazy language

English is a crazy 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?
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, 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.
 
Yup Ray .... I am sure it must be difficult for people from other languages to learn English.

Oh and they forgot mincemeat pie that we have at Christmas ... there is no mincemeat in it.
 
I love this Ray! And I'm from one of those other countries who speaks a different language. But I do love this language and I am more fluent in it now than in my own which is Romanian.

Sper ca ai o zi buna!

L:)aura
 
Very funny! I know people who are from like spain and japan and other places like that who have attempted to learn english. It is such a challenge for them!
{Oh, by the way, you forgot the "Mouse" Christmas pudding!}
 
Only in America!!

Only in the good ole USA do we.

Drive on a parkway and park in a drive way

Scrub our floors with real lemon juice and drink imitation lemon -aid.

Strive so hard to multi-task . . . one day at a time

Water our grass, so it will grow, so we have to cut it.

Pay $40,000 for a car with all the latest safety freatures and then neglect to fasten a $10 dollar seat belt.

drive to a gym to get exercise.

Have a phone so people can call us with caller id and answering machine so we don't have to talk to them.

expect people to keep a secret we fail to keep when we tell them.

spend 10 minutes finding a parking place 2 minutes closer to where we are going.


sincerely
Cliff
 
I love it


Only in the good ole USA do we.

Drive on a parkway and park in a drive way

Scrub our floors with real lemon juice and drink imitation lemon -aid.

Strive so hard to multi-task . . . one day at a time

Water our grass, so it will grow, so we have to cut it.

Pay $40,000 for a car with all the latest safety freatures and then neglect to fasten a $10 dollar seat belt.

drive to a gym to get exercise.

Have a phone so people can call us with caller id and answering machine so we don't have to talk to them.

expect people to keep a secret we fail to keep when we tell them.

spend 10 minutes finding a parking place 2 minutes closer to where we are going.


sincerely
Cliff
 
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