“People worry too much about … semantics.”
I can imagine explaining to a young child that there is no egg in eggplant or ham in hamburger. And that a pineapple comes from neither a pine tree nor an apple tree. I can imagine trying to explain that English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France. And then there are those sweetbreads which are neither sweet nor bread, and sweetmeats which are candies!
We typically take English for granted, but if we explore its idiosyncrasies, 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?” Why don’t grocers “groce?” And why don’t hammers “ham?”
If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, two geese. So one moose, two meese?
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? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, a language in which you fill in a form by filling it out, and a language in which an alarm goes off by going on.
English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. Except sometimes.
Are my peers as perplexed by this mass of inconsistencies as I?
