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.

 

English Paradoxes:

Quicksand can work slowly

Boxing rings are square

A guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

 

Why is it that writers write but fingers don't finge,

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 don'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 which 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?

 

created by: m'lady christine

 

 

e-mail me at either:

[email protected]

[email protected]

ICQ #12102351

 

Be joyul always; pray continuosly; give thanks in all circumstances for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thes. 5:16 NIV

---

Date this page was last edited: Monday, January 18, 1999