English is crazy

English is the most widely read language in the world. One in every seven human beings can speak it. English has the largest vocabulary – perhaps as many as two million words.

English is also a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant. Neither pine nor apple in pineapple and no ham in hamburger.  Sweetmeats are candy, while sweetbreads, which are not sweet, are meat. Quicksand works slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig nor from Guinea.

And why do writers write but fingers do not fing, grocers do not groce and hammers do not ham?

It vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?

Perhaps all English speakers should be sent to an asylum for the verbally insane. In which language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Have noses that run and feet that smell? How do ‘a wise man’ and ‘a wise guy’ differ in meaning? Why are ‘over look’ and ‘over see’ antonyms? Why are quite a lot and quite a few alike?

Don’t you 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 your alarm clock goes off by going on!

English was not invented by computers. It has the creativity of the human race [which is not a race at all]. That is why, when stars are out they are visible, when lights are out they are invisible. And why, when I wind up my watch I start it, when I wind up this essay I end it.