English is the most widely used language in the history of our planet.
One in every 7 humans can speak it. More than half of the
world's books and 3 quarters of international mail is in English. Of
all the languages, it has the largest vocabulary, perhaps as many as
2 MILLION words.
Nonetheless, 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?
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 by computers, and it
reflects the creativity of the human race (which, of course, is not
really a race at all). That is why, when 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.
-- Richard Lederer
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