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 or 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? 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?
Have you noticed that we talk about certain things only when they are absent? Have you ever seen a horsefull carriage or a strapfull gown? Met a sung hero or experienced requited love? Have you ever run into someone who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable? And where are all those people who ARE spring chickens or who would actually hurt a fly?
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.
|
Two Polish men at Halloween with burned faces. What happened? They were bobbing for french fries.
|
The graduate with a Science degree asks: 'Why does it work?' The graduate with an Engineering degree asks: 'How does it work?' The graduate with an Accounting degree asks: 'How much will it cost?' The graduate with a Liberal Arts degree asks: 'Do you want fries with that?'
|
I am the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and Fries
|
If life were fair, Dan Quayle would be making a living asking 'Do you want fries with that'
|
How about this for a headline for tomorrow's paper? French fries.
|
As of 1992, they're called European Economic Community fries.
|
Engineering: 'How will this work?'
Science: 'Why will this work?'
Management: 'When will this work?'
Liberal Arts: 'Do you want fries with that?'
|