English Is A Funny 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,  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?  Park on driveways        and  drive on parkways? 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 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.
          And why, when I wind up  my watch,        I start it, but  when I
          wind up this essay, I end it?