[2023] in Humor
HUMOR CLASSIC: English
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (abennett@MIT.EDU)
Tue Apr 15 15:17:04 1997
From: <abennett@MIT.EDU>
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 1997 14:56:02 EDT
From: "Mark A. Herschberg" <hershey@MIT.EDU>
From: be@theory.lcs.mit.edu (Be Blackburn)
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 97 10:31:26 EDT
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 blouse, 2 blice?
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 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 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.
