| This is an email I got about the craziness of the english language... kinda cute! |
| 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 nor French fries in France. We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and guinea pigs aren't 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? 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 of them but one, what do you have? If teachers taught, why didn't preachers prought? If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be commited to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Have noses that run, 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. People, not computers, invented English, 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 invisible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible. |