Crazy English?

Question

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?
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 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?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy 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, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all
That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is "UP."

It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP ?
At a meeting, why does a topic come UP?
Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report ?

We call UP our friends.
And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver, we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen.
We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car.
At other times the little word has real special meaning.
People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses.
To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed UP is special.

And this UP is confusing:
A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP.
We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.

We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP!
To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary.
In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions.
If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used.
It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more.
When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP.
When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP .

When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP.
When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry UP

One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP , for now my time is UP, so........... Time to shut UP!

PS. - Why doesn't "Buick" rhyme with "quick"

More than 500,00 basic words in the English language.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language#Number_of_words_in_English

Answer 1

thanks for sharing :) i was having a bad day today and it brought me UP a smile just reading this, thanks!

Answer 2

Wow! That was an amazing lecture about the English language. I'm not a native English speaker, and let me tell you... I know - as my English teacher said once - English is a great language because there is a rule for everything (easy to learn) but than you have to learn the "exceptions" and that makes you sweat :) More than that you have to learn to think in English, to dream in English and to use the right word in the right contest, otherwise things don't make sense and people look at you like you are coming from a different planet, because they have no idea how difficult their language is.

And this beautiful pronunciation....hmmm! unbelievable!

Tell me why the word "off" means something goes rotten, or stops or down, but when the plane "takes off" it actually goes up in the air, and the alarm or the cattle "goes off" it actually starts "working"... So sometimes "off" means "on" and than "on" means "off"

I think I will learn this language till the last day of my life :) but it's good to know that there are people who know how hard I work to be able to make myself understood.

Answer 3

Finally, someone who understands how my mind works!

When I was little, I wondered why a window is called a window. I've been told not to ask. But you asked. That's it, I'm printing this out! I don't think your crazy. I don't think you need to go off the caffeine. I don't think you're a bad person at all. I think you're one of the few who isn't writing this sitting on some sofa with their laptop, eating FRIES while FRYING their brains. Don't do that!

But remember, English is our language, and just like you and me, It is STRANGER than a STRANGE STRANGER. So just CUT it a break, like I'm CUTTING you one. CUT it out, CUT a tomato, and CUT down on the critisim.

You have the right idea! All hail people who think like this!

Answer 4

Why is English so screwy?
Because it borrows words from so many different places and evolves faster than any other language. Not that it implies it is better or worse than any other language, it just seems to be a melting pot of languages.

Try this on, what sound does -ough- make in the following words:
cough trough (rhymes with off)
dough though (rhymes with so)
rough tough enough (rhymes with muff)
drought (rhymes with out)
thought bought (rhymes with naught)
through slough (rhymes with blue)
bough ((rhymes with cow)

Answer 5

What's really fun is two people speaking English to each other--and everything gets misinterpreted! This happened with me & one of my friends, and both of us speak English as a first language.

BTW, you forgot that flammable and inflammable mean the same thing.

You park on driveways and drive on parkways.

Adults can commit adultery, but infants can't commit infantry.

"Fat chance" is an idiom that means there is a slim chance.

Answer 6

Pretty strange, right? And getting stranger every day. It sure makes you think, but we do strange things in the US anyway, like putting Braille instructions on the drive Thur teller machines.

It makes you think.

Answer 7

Yes, English is a beautiful language. Other languages are boring as hell.

Answer 8

Good points, but I would lay OFF the caffeine a little.

Answer 9

i dont know? But, i believe that English is the most delicate language out there.

Answer 10

because there is a hard acent in the U of buick. /\_/\

Answer 11

lol wowzers.. i never thought about that..