•Thomas Jefferson
•Muslim bookstore
•12 different answers
•New United Slogans
•miracle
•Please Shut up!
•Dogs Welcome
•Jenny
•The Mexican maid
•Cowboy Headstone
•A Bag of $20
•Rabbi advice
•a man and a shrink
•Texas taxi
•News Article
•Ten years later
•Iranian Air Defense
•Football and the Blonde
•temporary in nature
•The Dot
•The old Pastor
•Two Trees
•Favorite Fast Food
•They Walk Amoug US
•Man bites Dog
•29 lines
•Crabby Old Man
•Mens Poems
•Brutus the Hero
•Why Parents Drink
•Little Larry
•Liquid Viagra
•Ham Radio Gezer
•Hated Parents Words
•One Flaw In Women
•25 tips for life
•whats your dad's job?
•Estate Planning
•Texas Sized
•Magic Dildo
•Limping Dog
•You Might Be A Redneck If...
•WVA Garbage Bill
•CLASS REUNIONS
•trees in the road
•too short
•Replacement Windows
•garden
•Vegetative State
•SIPPING VODKA
•preagnat ladies
Title: English is a Crazy Language
| Let's face it -- English is a crazy language! > > > >There's 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, two geese. So one > > moose, two meese? One index, two indices? > >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 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 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 > >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? > >How 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 dis-combobulated, grunted, > > 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 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! > > This joke is from the collection at www.usaone.net/jokenet |
