whacky english

In my line of work I am most valuable for being an expert in the English language. Well, I haven’t had any formal education in grammar and vocabulary in many years! What I know I just acquired over the years…. So when questions come up and I have to explain why it is not correct to say “I have to clean the home” and yet it is correct to say,  “I have to clean the house” it is not an easy task.

English is pretty strange! It has become the global language, with so many speakers around this big blue planet trying to understand the complex workings of it.

Have you ever wondered why it is that people drive on parkways and park in driveways… recite at a play and play in a recital? You’re either coming or going, but “would you like to come with me?” and “would you like to go with me?” are nearly the same.

There is no ham in hamburger, no egg in eggplant; neither apple nor pine in pineapple, and English muffins weren’t invented in England. Sweetbreads aren’t sweet at all, and in fact they are meat.

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 our, and in which an alarm goes off by going on.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, doctors don’t doc, and hammers don’t ham? Shooters are a drink, bleachers are benches, and drivers are a golf club.

If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth beeth?

If two mouses are mice and two louses are lice, why aren't two houses hice?

One goose, two geese, one moose, two meese? And we all know the difference between a wise man and a wise guy…

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same thing? You can be up for something or down for something and either way you’re in. 

Sometimes I try to explain these things but it reminds me so much of when I was studying Spanish as my second language and my sweet professor Senora Perez told us students that it will be no good to ask why when dealing with language. It just is.

As a teacher I understand what Sra. Perez was saying, and am reminded of my students continual “why teacher?”. As for those learning English (or any language for all that matter) … just be ready for the certain confusion that will follow!