Re: No Wonder English is so Difficult

More Reflections On Why English Is So Difficult!

• We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes; but the plural of ox became oxen not oxes.
• One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese, yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
• You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice; yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.
• If the plural of man is always called men, why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
• If I spoke of my foot and show you my feet, and I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
• If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth, why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?
• Then one may be that, and three would be those, yet hat in the plural would never be hose, and the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
• We speak of a brother and also of brethren; but, though we say mother, we never say methren. Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him, but imagine the feminine, she, shis and shim.

Some reasons to be grateful if you grew up speaking English (read aloud):

1. The bandage was wound around the wound.
2. The farm was used to produce produce.
3. The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4. We must polish the Polish furniture.
5. He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7. Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8. At the Army base, a bass was painted on the head of a bass drum. 

Let's face it - English is a crazy language. Screwy pronunciations can mess up your mind! For example...

• If you have a rough cough, climbing can be tough when going hrough the bough on a tree!
• There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
• English muffins weren't invented in England nor 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.
• A guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
• Why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce, and hammers don't ham?
• 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 teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?
• If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English 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?
• How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wiseguy are opposites?

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 goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, across the ages, 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.