>Speak With Forked Tongue
>
>
>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 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 op- posites, 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.
>
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