There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
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English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France.
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Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet or bread, are meat.
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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.
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And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers
don't groce and hammers don't ham?
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If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth?
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One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese?
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One index, 2 indices?
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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?
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If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
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If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?
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If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
If you wrote a letter, perhaps you bote your tongue?
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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?
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Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?
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Park on driveways and drive on parkways?
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How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while
a wise man and wise guy are opposites?
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How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike?
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How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell another.
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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?
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Met a sung hero or experienced requited love?
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Have you ever run into someone who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable?
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And where are all those people who ARE spring chickens or who would ACTUALLY hurt a fly?
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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.
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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).
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That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.
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And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it?
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