This little treatise on the lovely language we share is only for the
brave.
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.
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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. |
If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? |
If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? |
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. If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all
but one of them, what do you call it? |
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, are humanitarians cannibals? |
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?
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Have noses that 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? |
And if I'm uncouth, are you couth? |
And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? |
And finally, why doesn't Buick rhyme with quick? |