E NGLISH I S A C RAZY L ANGUAGE

English is most widely spoken language in the history of our planet, used in some way by at lest one out of every seven human being around the globe. Hall of world books are written in English and the majority of international telephone calls are made in English. English is the language of sixty percent of world radio programs, many of them beam , ironically , by the Russian , who know to win friends and influence nations, they are best of using English . More than seventy percent of the international mail is written and addressed in English, and eighty percent of all computer text is stored in English. English has acquired a largest vocabulary of all the world language, perhaps as many as two million word and has generated as one of the world noblest bodies of literature in the annals of human race.

Nonetheless, it is now the time to face the fact that English is a crazy language.

In the crazy English, the blackbird hen is brown m black boards can be blue or green and blackberries are green and then red before they ripe. Even If black barriers were relying black and blue barriers rely blue. What are straw between cranberries, elderberries, hackle barriers, raspberries, boysenberries, mulberries and gooseberries supposed to look like? To add to the insanity , there is no butter in butter milk , no egg in eggplant , no grape in grapefruit , neither worm nor wood in wormwood , neither pine nor apple in pineapple, neither peas nor nuts in peanuts and no ham in hamburger ( in fact if somebody invented a sandwich consisting of ham patty in a bun , we would have a hard time finding a name for it) . To make matter worse, English muffins were not invented in England, French fries in France or Danish pastries in Denmark. And we discover even more culinary madness in the revolution that sweetmeat is a candy, while sweetbread, which is not sweet, is made from meat.In this unreliable English tongue , greyhounds are not always grey , panda bears and koala bears aren’t bears ( they are marsupials ) , a wood chunk is groundhog , which is not a hog , a horned toad I lizard , glowworm are fireflies , but fireflies are bit flies( they are beetles ), ladybugs and lightening bugs are also beetles ( and to propagate , a significant propagation of lady bugs must be male) a guinea pig is neither a pig nor form Guinea( is south American rodent) , and a titmouse is neither mammal nor mammaried.

Language is like an air we breathe. It is invisible, indispensable and we take it for granted. But take a time, a step back, and listen to he sound the escape from holes in peoples faces and explore the paradox and vagaries of English , we find that the hotdogs can be cold and darkroom can be lit , homework can be done in school , nightmare can take place in broad daylight, while morning sickness and daydreaming can take place at night , tomboys are girls , midwives can be men, hours-especially happy hours and the rush hours – can last longer than sixty

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minutes , quicksand works very slowly , boxing ring are square, silverware can be made of plastic an tablecloth of paper . Most telephone are dialed by being punched (or pushed), and most bathroom don’t have any bath in them. In fact dog can go to the bathroom under a tree – no bath no room, its still going to the bathroom. And doesn’t it seem at least a little bizarre that we go to the bathroom in order to go to the bathroom? Why is it that women can man a station but a men cant woman one , that a man can father a movement but a women cant mother one, and that a king rule a kingdom bit queen doesn’t rule theqeendom? How did all those Renaissance men reproduce when there don’t seem to have been any Renaissance women? A writer is someone who writes and a stinger is someone who stings. but finger don’t fing and grocers don’t groce , hammers don’t ham , and humdingers don’t humding .if the plural of the tooth is teeth , shouldn’t the plural of booth be beeth? One goose, two geese-so one moose two meese? One index, two indices-one Kleenex, two kleenices? If a people ring a bell today and rang a bell yesterday, why don’t we say that that they flang a bell? If they wrote a letter, perhaps they also bote their tongue. If the teacher taught why isn’t it also true that the preacher taught? Why is that the sun shone yesterday while I shined my shoes , that I treaded water and the trod on soil , and that I flew out to see a world series tame in which may favorite player field out?

If we conceive a conception and receive a reception, why don’t we grieve a greption and believe a beleption? If a horsehair mat is made from the hair of horses and a camel’s hair brush from the hair of camels, from what does a humanitarian eat? If firefighter fights fire, what does a shoplifter lift? If pro and con are opposites, is congress and the opposite of progress?

Some time you have a believe that all English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what other language do people drive in a parkway and park in driveway? In what other language do people recite at a play and play ant recital? In what other language do privates eat in the general mess and general eat in the private mess? In what other languages do people ship by truck and send cargo by ship? In what other language can your nose run and your feet smell? How can slim chance and fat chance be the same, “what’s going on?” and “what’s coming off? Be the same, and a bad licking and a good licking be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites. How can a sharp speech and blunt speech be the same and quite a lot a and quite a few are same, while overlook and oversea are opposites? How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cod as hell the next day? If button and unbutton and tie auntie are opposites, why are loosen and unloosen and ravel and unravel are the same? It the bad is the opposite of good, bard the opposite of soft a, and up the opposite of down, why are badly and goodly, hardly and softly and upright and downright not opposing peers? It harmless action is the opposite of harmful action, why not harmless action are the opposites of harmful action, why the shameless and shameful behavior the and privacy object

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are less expensive than priceless ones. If appropriate and inappropriate remarks and passable an impassable mountain trials are opposite, why are flammable and inflammable materials , heritable and inheritable property , and passive and impassive people the same and valuable object less treasured than invaluable ones? If uplift is the same as lift up, why are upset and setup opposite in meaning/ why re pertinent and impertinent, canny and uncanny, and famous and infamous neither opposite not the same? How can rise and famous and infamous and neither opposite nor the same? How can rise and raze and reckless and werckless be opposite when each pair contains the same sound? Why is it when the sun or the moon or the stars are out, they are visible , but when the lights are out , they are invisible , and that when I wind up my watch , I start , but when I wind up this essay I shall end it? English is a crazy language

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