Crazy language
English is the most widely used
language in the history of our planet. One in every 7 humans can speak it.
More than half of the world's books and 3 quarters of international mail is
in English. Of all the languages, it has the largest vocabulary - perhaps as
many as 2 MILLION words. Nonetheless, 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? One mouse, 2 mice; so one spouse, why not two spice?
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
preacher 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
other 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 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.
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última vez em 19 de janeiro de 1999
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