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? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make
amends but not one amend, that you comb thru 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 preachers 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?  Send shipments by car
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 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.
Having a fun summer??  A little humor then...
DT
--- WILDMAIL!/WC v4.12 
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