English

It’s the world’s looniest language

English is the most widely spoken language in the history of our planet, used in some way by at least one out of every seven human around the globe.

Half the world’s books are written in English, and the majority of international telephone calls are made in English. English is the language of more than 60 percent of the world’s radio programs, many of them beamed, ironically, by the Soviets, who know that to win friends and to influence nations, they are better off using English. More than 70 percent of international mail is written and addressed in English, and 80 percent of all computer text is stored in English.

English has acquired the largest vocabulary of all the world’s languages, perhaps as many as 2 million words, and has generated one of the noblest bodies of literature in the annals of human race.

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

IN ENGLISH, there is no butter in buttermilk, no egg in eggplant, no grape in grapefruit, no bread in shortbread, neither worms nor wood in wormwood, neither mush nor room in mushroom, neither pine nor apple in pineapple, neither peas nor nuts in peanuts and no ham in hamburger.

And we discover even more culinary madness in the revelations that a sweetmeat is candy, while a sweetbread, which isn’t sweet, is meat.

Language is like the air we breathe. It is invisible, inescapable, indispensable, and we take it for granted. But when we take the time to step back and listen to the sounds that escape from the holes in people’s faces and to explore the paradoxes and vagaries of English, we find that tomboys are girls and hours – especially happy hours and rush hours – often last longer than 60 minutes, boxing rings are square, silverware can be made of stainless steel, glasses of plastic and tablecloths of paper, and most telephones are dialed by being punched (or pushed?).

WHY IS IT that a woman can man a station but a man can’t woman one, that a man can father a movement but a woman cannot mother one, and that a king rules a kingdom but a queen does not rule a queedom?

A writer is someone who writes, and a stinger is something that stings. But fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce, hammers don’t ham and hum-dingers don’t humding. If the plural of 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 people ring a bell today and rang a bell yesterday, why don’t we say that they flang a ball? If they wrote a letter, perhaps they also bote their tongue. If the teacher taught, why isn’t it also true that the preacher praught?

If we conceive a conception and receive at a reception, why don’t we grieve a greption and believe a beleption? If a horsehair mat is made from hair of horses and a camel’s hair brush from the hair of camels, from what animal is a mohair coat made? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? If a fire fighter fights fire, what does a freedom fighter fight? If pro and con are opposites, is Congress the opposite of progress?

SOMETIMES YOU have to believe that all English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what other language do people drive on a parkway and park in a driveway? In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? In what other language do privates eat in a general mess and generals eat in a private mess? In what other language do people ship by truck and send cargo by ship? In what other language can your nose run and your feet smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, a bad licking and a good licking be the same, and ‘What’s going on?’ and ‘What’s coming off?’ be the same – while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? How can sharp speech and blunt speech be the same, and quite a lot and quite a few the same, while overlook and oversee are opposites? How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell the next?

English is a crazy language.

How can it be easier to assent then dissent but harder to ascend that to descend? Why is it that a man with hair on his head has more hair than a man with hairs on his head; that if you decide to be bad forever, you choose to be bad for good, and that if you choose to wear only your left shoe, then your left one is right and your right one is left? Right?

SMALL WONDER that we English users are constantly standing meaning on its head. Let’s look at a number of familiar English words and phrases that turn out to mean the opposite of – or something very different from – what they seem to mean:

· A non-stop flight. Never get on one of these. You’ll never get down.

· A near miss. A near miss is, in reality, a collision. A close call is actually a near hit.

· Between the cracks. If something fell between the cracks, didn’t it land smack on the planks or the concrete? Shouldn’t that be ‘It fell into the cracks’ (or between the boards)?

· A hot-water heater. Who heats hot water?

· A hot cup of coffee. Here again the English language gets us in hot water. Who cares if the cup is hot?

· A one-night stand. So who’s standing?

· Daylight saving time. Not a single second of daylight is saved by this ploy.

· Preplan, preboard, preheat and prerecord. Aren’t people who do such things simply planning, boarding, heating and recording? The prefix is pretentious.

· Put on yours shoes and socks. This is an exceedingly difficult maneuver. Most of us put on our socks first, then our shoes.

· A hit-and-run play. If you know your baseball, you know that the sequence constitute a run-and-hit play.

· Back and forth? No, you have to go forth before you can go back.

· Watch your head. I keep seeing this sign on low doorways, but I haven’t figured out how to follow the instructions. Trying to watch your head is like trying to bite your teeth.

· Head over heels in love. That’s nice, but we do almost everything head over heels.

WHAT DO YOU make of the fact that we can talk about certain things and ideas only when they are absent? Once they appear, English doesn’t allow us to describe them. Have you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful gown? Have you ever run into someone who was combobulated, sheveled, gruntled, chalant, plussed, ruly, gainly, maculate, pecunious or peccable? Have you ever met a sung hero or experienced requited love? I know people who are no spring chickens, but where, pray tell, are the people who are spring chickens? Where are the people who actually would hurt a fly? All the time I meet people who are great shakes, who can cut the mustard, who can fight City Hall, who are my cup of tea, and whom I would touch with a 10-foot pole, but I can’t talk about them in English – and that is a laughing matter.

If truth be told, all languages are a little crazy. As Walt Whitman might proclaim, they contradict themselves. That’s because language is invented, not discovered, by boys and girls and men and women, not computers. As such, language reflects the creative and fearful asymmetry of human race (which, of course, isn’t really a race at all). That’s why six, seven, eight and nine change to sixty, seventy, eighty and ninety, but two, three, four and five do not become twoty, threety, fourty and fivety. That’s why first-degree murder is more serious that third-degree murder but a third-degree burn is more serious than a first-degree burn. That’s why we wear a pair of pants but, except on very cold days, not a pair of shirts.

STILL, YOU have to marvel at the unique lunacy of the English language, in which your house can simultaneously burn up and burn down, in which you fill out a form by filling in a form, in which you add up a column of figures by adding them down, and in which you first chop a tree down – and then you chop it up.