There's 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, two geese. So one moose, two meese? One index, two
indices?
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend, that you
comb through the 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 a
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?
How 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 dis-combobulated, grunted, 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 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!
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