Fun: MASTERING THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

[Alain LaBonté <alb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

   Même si ce qui suit est en anglais, je le répercute tel quel, c'est trop
savoureux... C'est d'ailleurs intraduisible... du moins la traduction
serait incompréhensible. 

Alain LaBonté
Québec

>From: "Hart, Edwin F." <Edwin.Hart@xxxxxxxxxx>
>To: 'La Bonté, Alain' <alb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
>        "'Winters, Joan'" <Winters@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
>        "'Fong, Bart'"
>	 <Bartley.Fong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
>        "'Eliot, Brian'" <briane@xxxxxxx>
>Subject: Fun: MASTERING THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
>Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1999 11:17:56 -0500 
>
>> 
>> English is a crazy Language
>
>> There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor
>> pine in pineapple  English muffins weren't invented in England or
>> French fries in France.  Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads,
>> which aren't sweet, are meat.
>> We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes,
>> will 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, grocers
>> don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth,
>> why isn't the plural of booth beeth?  One goose, 2 geese.
>> So one moose, 2  meese?  One index, 2 indices?
>> Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend,
>> that you comb through annals of history but not a single annal?
>> If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one
>> of them, what do you call it?
>> If teachers taught, why didn't preacher praught? If a vegetarian eats
>> vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?  If you wrote a letter,
>> perhaps you bote your tongue?
>> 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? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship?
>> Have noses that run and feet that smell?  Park on driveways and
>> drive on parkways?
>> How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man
>> and wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites,
>> while quite a lot and quite a few are alike?
>> Have you noticed that we talk about certain things only when they are
>> absent? Have you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful gown?
>> Met a sung hero or experienced requited love? Have you ever run into
>> someone who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable?
>> And where are all those people who ARE spring chickens or who would
>> ACTUALLY hurt a fly?
>> 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 out and in which an alarm clock goes off by going on.
>> English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the
>> creativity of the human race (which, of course, isn't a race at all).
>> That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the
>> lights are out, they are invisible. And why, when I wind up my watch,
>> I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it.
>
>