Crazy English
Friday, November 12th, 2004
© Richard Lederer
richard.lederer@pobox.com
Verbivore
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? One Kleenex, 2 Kleenices?
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 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 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.
I like that book very much. Many English speaking people don’t realise that learning English is an extremely hard task for people who were born in countries where English is not spoken.
Obviously English is a language much too crazy to be an international language, an international language should be easy to pronounce, easy to spell, no exceptions in the grammar, etc. Such a language does exist, it is called Esperanto. Thanks to the Internet more and more people are taking it up, but the media still doesn’t mention it often at all. I suppose the media is kept busy by the bad things happening in the world and can’t report about the good things happening that would promote a better understanding of different cultures, etc.
Nicole: Amen (I agree).
Every people with a honoured history has such interesting phenomenon,as to chinese,when it comes to someone was beated,we can say both”DA SHENG somebody” and “DA BAI someone”,amazingly,they have the same meaning!So despite it is victory or defeat,we win!
hastewang: You made me laugh out loud. Great. Thanks.
this is a great essay. it’s my #1 favourite. praise for richard lederer
DR LEDERER, I just heard you on ksfo in San Francisco. You mentioned your 5 year problem with your voice. My son has had the very same voice problems. He has had one surgery on one side of his vocal cords but the out side has yet to be done. Wehave never had a name that we could call this problem. I wrote the name that I heard you say. Was it LUCA PLACIA? My son Bryan is 48 years old and has become very discouraged; he also has trouble breathing. I would very much appreciate learning more about your journey with this disease. No one has ever heard of it nor knows what to do. As a Mother, I have been extremely worried about him and have prayed for his good health again. If you can help me with any advice I would appreciate it
Thank you,
Judy Walk
e-mail address walkenj@sbcglobal.net
Oh yeah I agree with you. I love this book. lol
hahaha i could not agree with you more. Excellent