Let's face it: English is a crazy language. F'rinstance, I never had no cowboy leg. I never had my carbon burning my black bowel.Furthermore, 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 works 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. 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. 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? In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses than run and feet that smell?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? 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, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.
P.S. Why doesn't "Buick" rhyme with "quick?"
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My favorite word today is wammy. Adj., warm and slightly clammy. Def.: Descriptive of your hands after the automatic drying machine has turned itself off and left you just damp enough to make it embarrassing if you have to shake hands with somebody immediately afterward.
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