It's the lunacy of the English language. English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplants, 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 it's paradoxes, 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; grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, two geese. So one moose, two meese? .Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not amend? .If teachers taught, why don't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. 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 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. You are free to add your own observations about the paradoxes thats called English language

Not just cowgirls ride cowgirl.....

Leave girls/women out of this before they come after your neck!!. Lol

Speaking as a literal master of the subject:
English is crazy as hell, this is true.
But most other languages are even crazier. For example, in English you'd never mistake the word "horse" for the word "mother", like I hear you easily can in Chinese.
In English, you have many more streamlined words that cut out unnecessary vowels and gender signifiers that don't change the meaning or function of the word, but merely make them harder to spell and decline/conjugate. (It takes the French 4 separate letters to make one vocalized sound: "-eaux" sounds "oh".

In order to understand things like why something can "burn up" while it is burning down, or why we always have two words to describe one thing (synonyms for the win!), you have to realize that English is the bastard child of two separate language groups: French, which is derived from Romantic/Latin languages, and German, which is derived from Germanic languages. (Both of these languages are even crazier than English. If you don't believe me, take an introductory course in either.)

From French we take our love of diphthongs, triphthongs, and quadraphthongs (two, three, or four letters that make one different sound than either of them alone). For example, "-ng" or "-nk", "-sh-","-ph-", and "-th-", Interestingly, the word "diphthong" contains three different diphthongs ("ph", "th", and "ng"). Many of our multisyllabic words are taken directly out of French, but converted into words that are easier to spell and pronounce. You'll notice in English, we often have LOTS of letters in longer words that we don't pronounce separately, like anything that ends in "-tion", which is "shun" instead of "tee-on".

From German we take many of our monosyllabic words, or words that describe everyday things. "Milk" <==> "Milch", "bread" <==> "Brot", "God" <==> "Gott". You'll notice in the latter two examples, Ts are turned into Ds and vice versa. This is a common change when you look at cognates between English and German (a cognate is a word that sounds similar and has a similar meaning in two or more languages). Most of these words go back a thousand years or more, when various Germanic-speaking peoples invaded England and settled there. In 1066, William "The Conqueror" invaded England and brought French culture and language, which reigned for several centuries. (You weren't "cool" unless you spoke French and ate with French silverware.) English as a language was thought of as the poor man's choice - spoken by the peasants and rabble.

Then came some guy you've probably never heard of and don't care about, but if you've really managed to read this far, you should take a look at this timeline of the English language.

http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~kemmer/Words/chron.html

You can see from the sheer number of changes inflicted on the language, all the abuse and trauma it's gone through, it's still pretty sane as far as languages go. It's an alloy, a mixed breed, and generally stronger and more efficient for it.
The keen-eyed among you will noticed that the timeline of the English language ends with the advent of the internet, "leet-speak", and texting. This is the way many scholars of the language feel about that.

We give this world a language, amongst lots of other things and people complain.

So please don't go there, or is it their, or they're


One saying that has crept in in recent years is

The dogs bollocks, or, a load of bollocks

The dogs being something good, the load being something bad

And don't forget, the longest sentence in the English language is 'I do'

You really know what I was trying to say. This isnt kid's or school drop-outs thread. Bravo!

ANY language can be skewed-up; but ja, English is easily an example.

If you don't like English, then live in a nation where another language is the dominant language. Problem solved.

Long before the Ingles, became
"The English", the language was called 'Frieze' . It was one of the spoken languages of the Germanic peoples.

english is a great language

great: of an extent, amount, or intensity considerably above the normal or average.


although many use the word 'great' as an exclamation of something being 'good'



atila was a great leader,,(not a good person, but a person who lead above normal or average)

You too understood the point I was making

here's one uche, how do you pronounce this...

photi.............?

uche --- a photier of men...

lol. The onus(another nonsense English word) lies (another paradox) on you to explain whatever "photier" stands for. And you have 24 hours to so do, else.....

The language is called English, but the English don't really own it anymore, it is added to and words spellings changed in so many other countries that have taken it as a first language. It is the English Language in name only in many countries outside of England and the United Kingdom.

It's all messed up cause we have vodka..

you're thinking too much, uche...

And when did England usurp the authorship?

I dont think so. Make an attempt and see how "easy" it is

Seems the English language is working for us, considering the fact that we are not a third world country.

Hahahaha. You never knew the literal meaning of my name in our local dialect is "think". My parent named me "Uchenna" and names have ways of influencing bearers' behaviours and even destinies!!