The English Language

 
Here is one for all of our English language experts out there. This essay was sent in to a Chicago radio station this week. They read it over the air and then received numerous phone calls from people asking for copies of it. The radio station in turn put it on their bulletin board system. Here is a copy of that essay.

THAT CRAZY ENGLISH LANGUAGE!

Do you think communication would be so much more simple if everyone in the world spoke English??

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.

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?

Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend, that you comb through the 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 vegetarians eat 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? Park on driveways and drive on parkways? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposite, while quite a few and quite a lot are alike? How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell the other day?

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? 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.

Aphorisms

1. I think animal testing is a terrible idea; they get all nervous and give the wrong answers.
-- A Bit of Fry and Laurie

2. A Freudian slip is when you say one thing but mean your mother.

3. The hypothalamus is one of the most important parts of the brain, involved in many kinds of motivation, among other functions. The hypothalamus controls the "Four F's":
1. fighting; 2. fleeing; 3.feeding; and 4. mating.
-- Psychology professor in neuropsychology intro course

4. What is a committee? A group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit, to do the unnecessary.
-- Richard Harkness, The New York Times, 1960

5. Slogan of 105.9, the classic rock radio station in Chicago: "Of all the radio stations in Chicago...we're one of them."

6. With every passing hour our solar system comes forty-three thousand miles closer to globular cluster M13 in the constellation Hercules, and still there are some misfits who continue to insist that there is no such thing as progress.
-- Ransom K. Ferm

7. Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change.

8. Applying computer technology is simply finding the right wrench to pound in the correct screw.

9. The graduate with a Science degree asks, "Why does it work?"
The graduate with an Engineering degree asks, "How does it work?"
The graduate with an Accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?"
The graduate with a Liberal Arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?"

10. Karate is a form of martial arts in which people who have had years and years of training can, using only their hands and feet, make some of the worst movies in the history of the world.
-- Dave Barry

11. I am not a vegetarian because I love animals; I am a vegetarian because I hate plants.
-- A. Whitney Brown

12. A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
-- William James

13. Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway.
-- Andrew Tannenbaum

14. We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again---and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.
-- Mark Twain

15. There's so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?
-- Dick Cavett, mocking the TV-violence debate

16. If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there are men on base.
-- Dave Barry

17. I am sick unto death of obscure English towns that exist seemingly for the sole accommodation of these so-called limerick writers -- and even sicker of their residents, all of whom suffer from physical deformities and spend their time dismembering relatives at fancy dress balls.
-- Editor of the Limerick Times (Limerick, Ireland)

18. When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl.

19. Lazlo's Chinese Relativity Axiom: No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats---approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.

20. 667: The Neighbor of the Beast

21. Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps.
-- Emo Phillips

22. Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.

23. Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake when you make it again.
-- F. P. Jones

24. Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
-- Douglas Adams, _Last Chance to See_

25. As your attorney, it is my duty to inform you that it is not important that you understand what I'm doing or why you're paying me so much money. What's important is that you continue to do so.
-- Hunter S. Thompson's Samoan Attorney

26. When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, "Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?"
-- Quentin Crisp

27. Boundary, n. In political geography, an imaginary line between two nations, separating the imaginary rights of one from the imaginary rights of another.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

28. I think that all right-thinking people in this country are sick and tired of being told that ordinary, decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I'm certainly not! But I'm sick and tired of being told that I am! -- Monty Python

29. May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
-- George Carlin

30. Sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma.

31. Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
-- John F. Kennedy

32. Life may have no meaning. Or even worse, it may have a meaning of which I disapprove.
-- Ashleigh Brilliant

33. My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right.
-- Ashleigh Brilliant

34. Her kisses left something to be desired -- the rest of her.

35. Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing.

36. Always try to do things in chronological order; it's less confusing that way.

37. Based on what you know about him in history books, what do you think Abraham Lincoln would be doing if he were alive today?
- 1. Writing his memoirs of the Civil War.
- 2. Advising the President.
- 3. Desperately clawing at the inside of his coffin.
--David Letterman

38. Once at a social gathering, Gladstone said to Disraeli, "I predict, Sir, that you will die either by hanging or of some vile disease".
Disraeli replied, "That all depends, sir, upon whether I embrace your principles or your mistress."

39. For three days after death, hair and fingernails continue to grow but phone calls taper off.
-- Johnny Carson

40. I think that the team that wins game five will win the series. Unless we lose game five.
-- Charles Barkley

41. My initial response was to sue her for defamation of character, but then I realized that I had no character.
-- Charles Barkley, on hearing Tonya Harding proclaim herself "the Charles Barkley of figure skating"

42. The most important thing in the programming language is the name. A language will not succeed without a good name. I have recently invented a very good name and now I am looking for a suitable language.
-- D. E. Knuth, 1967

43. A slipping gear could let your M203 grenade launcher fire when you least expect it. That would make you quite unpopular in what's left of your unit.
-- In the August 1993 issue, page 9, of PS magazine, the Army's magazine of preventive maintenance

44. An Animated Cartoon Theology:
1. People are animals.
2. The body is mortal and subject to incredible pain.
3. Life is antagonistic to the living.
4. The flesh can be sawed, crushed, frozen, stretched, burned, bombed, and plucked for music.
5. The dumb are abused by the smart and the smart destroyed by their own cunning.
6. The small are tortured by the large and the large destroyed by their own momentum.
7. We are able to walk on air, but only as long as our illusion supports us.
-- E. L. Doctorow "The Book of Daniel"

45. Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
-- Mark Twain

46. Calvin: People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world.
Hobbes: Isn't your pants' zipper supposed to be in the front?

47. On one occasion a student burst into his office. "Professor Stigler, I don't believe I deserve this F you've given me." To which Stigler replied, "I agree, but unfortunately it is the lowest grade the University will allow me to award."

48. The overwhelming majority of people have more than the average (mean) number of legs.
-- E. Grebenik

49. Old Yiddish proverb: "If triangles had a God, He'd have three sides."

50. Don't worry about temptation--as you grow older, it starts avoiding you.
-- Old Farmer's Almanac

51. G: "If we do happen to step on a mine, Sir, what do we do?"
EB: "Normal procedure, Lieutenant, is to jump 200 feet in the air and scatter oneself over a wide area."
-- Somewhere in No Man's Land, BA4

52. The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.
-- Plutarch

53. Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, "Where have I gone wrong?" Then a voice says to me, "This is going to take more than one night."
-- Charlie Brown, _Peanuts_ [Charles Schulz]

54. The only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad.
-- Salvador Dali

55. What a distressing contrast there is between the radiant intelligence of the child and the feeble mentality of the average adult.
-- Sigmund Freud

56. I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me.
-- Hunter S. Thompson

57. Sacred cows make the best hamburger.
-- Mark Twain

58. "Time's fun when you're having flies."
-- Kermit the Frog