Today's topic is about the English language. 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, 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 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 
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 (as compared to a horseless 
one) or a strapful gown (as opposed to a strapless)? Met a sung hero
("unsung") or experienced requited ("unrequited) 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.