Talking with a friend about the vagaries of English from yesterday’s odd
collection, I was reminded . . .
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.
Quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is
neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
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 didn’t preachers praught? 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.
~~
Dr Bob Griffin, www.grif.net
“Jesus knows me, this I love”