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Englishia 318

A/N: I'm not giving umbrage to you if you're English, so do not take it. 😶

English is a crazy, language. There is neither eggs in eggplant or ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England nor French fries in France. Sweetmeats are sweets (candies) while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quick sand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, a Guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

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 come make amends but not one amend, that you comb through anals of history but not a single anal? 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 vegetable, what does a humanitarian eat? If you wrote a letter, perhaps you bite 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 a play and play a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run (runny nose) and feet that smell (stinky feet)? Park on driveways and drive on parkways?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a 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 houseful carriage or a strapful gown? Met a sung hero or experienced requited love? Have you ever run into someone who was combobulated, grunted, 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 alarm clock goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and its reflects creativity of the human race (which of course, isn't a race at all). That is why, when stars 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.

Adapted from a magazine article 'A STUDY IN CONTRADICTION'.