I am so fortunate to have been born in a country with one of the most difficult languages to learn. I wasn’t tortured by all the wacky synonyms and antynoms and idiosyncrasies of this goofy language. Why is it that American English has rules that keep changing and sounds that can be spelled different ways? More than 2 or 3 ways to say the same thing? How terrible to be a foreigner trying to learn it?? Take for instance the letter G. When combined with a U after, it is pronounced GW, but with another vowel its simply GEH or GEE, but sometimes in GIRAFFE or GERMAN it is pronounced JIR. Why is this? Take C. It can take on a K sound in CAT or an S sound as in CITY. And combine that with H, you get a CH sound like one is sneezing! It’s all a bunch of memorizing in this case. In fact when I was a teen, I saw a comedian, Gallagher, who did a take on this very subject. Ever since then I have been in agreement at how silly it can be. I guess since American English is a melting pot of cultures, it is no wonder that there are several rules or maybe a lack thereof?
09/26/08: NEW UPDATE
I found this in an email sent to me recently…which supports my point:
“You think English is easy ?
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 atear.
19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
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 nor 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? No. 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 teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught ? If a vegetarian eats 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? 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, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.”
PS. – Why doesn’t ‘Buick’ rhyme with ‘quick?’
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