English is a Crazy Language, but not as crazy as me...

The following is not originally mine, and you may have heard tidbits of it before. BUT! As I am an English major-hunk, I thought this particularly relative to my situation and your enjoyment. BUT! Particularly is my favorite word.

"English is a Crazy 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
blouse, 2 blice?

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 ―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?

– Richard Lederer