AuthorSuite Blog: Is English a crazy language?

#Humor - The Paradox of English

“NEVER MAKE FUN OF SOMEONE WHO SPEAKS BROKEN ENGLISH. IT MEANS THEY KNOW ANOTHER LANGUAGE.”

- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling, who, in 1907 was the first English-language writer, and at the age of 42, the youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, was said to have been fired as a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner. His termination letter was reported to have said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don’t know how to use the English language. This isn’t a kindergarten for amateur writers.”

Now, while there is no corroborative record of this event, it nonetheless sounds crazy to hear that an English journalist and Nobel laureate was actually fired for improper use of English. Hilarious? Yes. Crazy? Maybe, but certainly not as far-fetched an incident as it might seem, after all publishers get it embarrassingly wrong some of the time.

In one of his most enduring quotes, Kipling was recorded as saying, “Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.”

Interesting? Now, here are the top 20 reasons why the English language is so difficult to learn:

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Well, isn’t it funny that there is no egg in eggplant and no ham in hamburger? There’s 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. Native speakers 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.

Now, here’s a quick question: 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 a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? 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, 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. How about when you want to shut down your computer you have to hit “start.”