The oddities of language...

[MBrevard]

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 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.

Go figure!!!

Love,
MB
xxx

[MBrevard]

A Mother Mouse and her three children crept out of their hole into the kitchen and began feasting on some delicious bits of food.

Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, Mother Mouse saw a cat slinking toward them. The cat was between the mice and their hole. The Mother Mouse puffed up her lungs and went, "Woof! Woof!" The cat turned tail and ran. With that, the mother quickly led her children back to safety in their hole.

When they were settled and breathing normally, Mother Mouse said to her children, "Now, what's the lesson from that experience?" "We don't know," the baby mice sqeaked. "It is this," said Mom Mouse. "It's good to know a second language."



Love,
MB
xxx

[Rob The Badger]

Interesting.
First off, the plural of Moose is Moose. Like sheep.
Anyway, there are many interesting complexities of language as you have pointed out.
But surely our language would be far more efficient if we were to scrap all the useless words and remove ambiguity from our language forever, as in Orwell's NewSpeak (1984).

Surely this is the way to go.
Instead of all the ambiguous words for good such as "Excellent" "Terrific" and "Brilliant". These words have been degraded into a lesser meaning.
We could simply use "good" "plusgood" and "doubleplusgood" and for antonyms we disregard them and add 'un' at the beginning.
eg: "ungood" = bad "plusungood" = Terrible et cetera.

And contrary to popular belief, to describe something or someone as "Decadent" is not a compliment. Read the dictionary.

And the word "awesome" has sunk. No longer does it mean what it should.

So maybe the growth of language is not always a good thing.
But of course I'm all in favour of a wide language. I'm a poet. ^_^

[Bren]

interesting.

There are various rhymes/poems done on a similar theme,such as

I said this horse sir will you shoe,
At once the horse he shod.
I said this deed sir will you do,
And soon the deed was dod

or one's that play around with words that sound the same but have diferent meaning
part of a poem,
..."His death which happened in his berth,
At forty odd befell
They went and told the parson,
and the parson tolled the bell..."

or
"The shades of night were falling fast
The rain was falling faster,
When through an Alpine village passed
An Alpine village pastor."

i'll get back to you when i've had a think.

[Rob The Badger]

'tis an odd thing indeed.

[Bren]

Indeed it is Eyeore.

MB,You put in your post

"If teachers taught,why didn't preachers praught?"
but teachers teach and preachers preach

If enough is pronounced enuff
Why isn't a plough a pluff
Either that or enough should be enow
There are so many examples you could go on for ever.

[Asha]

This is so much fun...

You know I never looked at english like this before.....nice though.

I have a difficult enough time to get my point across in english, please do not start with plusgood or plusungood on me

hehe, I think I could come up with some exsamples in dutch, but I won't bother you with it

Asha

[MBrevard]

Since poetry was mentioned, how do you feel about the American writer Ogden Nash, who loved to play with language soundalikes, often bending them to make them fit? Here's one of my favorite little poems:

A funny thing, the ketchup bottle.
First none'll come, and then a lott'll.

Or,

The wasp and all his numerous family
I look upon as a major calamily.
He throws open his nest with prodigality,
But I distrust his waspitality.



Love,
MB
xxx