Saturday 21 June 2014

Crazy

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?
 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 don'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"
 You lovers of the English language might enjoy this .

 There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other
 two-letter word, and that is "UP."

 It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the
 list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP ? At a
 meeting, why does a topic come UP? Why do we speak UP and why are the
 officers UP for election and why is it UP to the
 secretary to write UP a report ?

 We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP
 the silver; warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP
 the house and some guys fix UP the old car. At other times the little
 word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for
 tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one
 thing but to be dressed UP is special.

 And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is
 stopped UP . We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at
 night.
 We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP! To be knowledgeable about the
 proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized
 dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about
thirty definitions. If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a
 list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time,
 but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more. When
 it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When the sun comes out
 we say it is clearing UP.

 When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP.

 When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry UP.

 We could go on, but I'll wrap it UP , for now my time is UP, so... Time
 to shut UP.!

can't you tell i'm stuck in the house and bored i should have called this note the work of idle hands .....can i go to work now?

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