Footnote.......
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 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? 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 a wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee
be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike?
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 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?
Page revised: November 6, 2009
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