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\nFrom: DALE DAY <\/p>\n
Excerpts from “Crazy English” by Richard Lederer (Pocket Books 1989)<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, it is now time to face the fact that English is a
\ncrazy language.
\n In the crazy English language, the blackbird hen is brown,
\nblackboards can be blue or green, and blackberries are green and then
\nred before they are ripe. Even if blackberries were really black and
\nblueberries really blue, what are strawberries, cranberries, elderberries,
\nhuckleberries, raspberries, boysenberries, and gooseberries supposed to
\nlook like?
\n To add to the insanity, there is no butter in buttermilk, no egg in
\neggplant, neither worms nor wood in wormwood, neither pine nor apple in
\npineapple, and no ham in a hamburger. (In fact, if somebody invented a
\nsandwich consisting of a ham patty in a bun, we would have a hard time
\nfinding a name for it.) To make matters worse, English muffins weren’t
\ninvented in England, french fries in France, or Danish pastries in Denmark.
\nAnd we discover even more culinary madness in the revelations that sweet-
\nmeat is made from fruit, while sweetbread, which isn’t sweet, is made from
\nmeat.
\n In this unreliable English tongue, greyhounds aren’t always grey (or
\ngray), ladybugs and fireflies are beetles, a panda bear is a raccoon, a
\nkoala bear is a maruspial, a guinea pig is neither a pig nor from Guinea,
\nand a titmouse is neither mammal nor mammaried.
\n…
\n Why is it that a woman can man a station but a man can’t woman one,
\nthat a man can father a movement but a woman can’t mother one, and that a
\nking rules a kingdom but a queen doesn’t rule a queendom? How did all those
\nRenaissance men reproduce when there doesn’t seem to have been any
\nReniassance women?
\n A writer is someone who writes, and a stinger is something that stings.
\nBut fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce, hammers don’t ham, and hum-
\ndingers don’t hum. If the plural of tooth is teeth, shouldn’t the plural of
\nbooth be beeth? One goose, two geese – so one moose, two meese? One index,
\ntwo indices – one Kleenex, two Klennices? If people ring a bell today and
\nrang a bell yesterday, why don’t we say that they flang a ball? If they wrote
\na letter perhaps they also bote their tongue. If the teacher taught, why
\nisn’t it also true that the preacher praught? Why is it that the sun shone
\nyesterday while I shined my shoes, that I treaded water and then trod on
\nsoil, and that I flew out to see a World Series game in which my favorite
\nplayer flied out?<\/p>\n
Again, courtesy of my wife’s English teacher, Mr. Gomez
\n—
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