English is a Crazy Language

Richard Lederer
1989

Let's face it—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, 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 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? 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 preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

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? 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, in
which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which an alarm goes off by going on.

How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell another? 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 would ACTUALLY hurt a fly?
Why is "crazy man" and insult, while to insert a comma and say, "crazy, man!" is a compliment (as when
applauding a jazz performance)?

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.

(the column “Lederer on Language” appears each Saturday in the San Diego Union-Tribune)

Our Queer English Language

Alice Hess Beveridge

We'll begin with box; the plural is boxes, And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
But the plural of ox is oxen, not oxes. If one is a tooth, and a whole set are teeth
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese, Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?
But the plural of mouse is not ever meese. If a singular this is a plural these
You may find a lone mouse, or a whole nest of mice, Should the plural of kiss ever be keese?
But the plural of house is still never hice. We speak of a brother and also call brethren,
If the plural of man is always men And though we say mother we never say methren.
Why shouldn't the plural of pan be pen? Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
If I speak of a foot and you show me two feet, But imagine the feminine she, shis and shim.
The Chaos
Gerard Nolst Trenité (1870–1946)

Dearest creature in creation, Ivy, privy, famous; clamour Tour, but our and succour, four.
Study English pronunciation. And enamour rhyme with hammer. Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
I will teach you in my verse River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb, Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse. Doll and roll and some and home. Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy, Stranger does not rhyme with anger, Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Make your head with heat grow dizzy. Neither does devour with clangour. Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear. Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer. Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant, Compare alien with Italian,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger, Dandelion and battalion.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard, And then singer, ginger, linger, Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Dies and diet, lord and word, Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge, Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Sword and sward, retain and Britain. Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age. Say aver, but ever, fever,
(Mind the latter, how it's written.) Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Now I surely will not plague you Query does not rhyme with very, Heron, granary, canary.
With such words as plaque and ague. Nor does fury sound like bury. Crevice and device and aerie.
But be careful how you speak: Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak; Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath. Face, but preface, not efface.
Cloven, oven, how and low, Though the differences seem little, Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe. We say actual but victual. Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Refer does not rhyme with deafer. Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery, Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer. Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore, Mint, pint, senate and sedate; Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles, Dull, bull, and George ate late. Seven is right, but so is even,
Exiles, similes, and reviles; Scenic, Arabic, Pacific, Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Scholar, vicar, and cigar, Science, conscience, scientific. Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Solar, mica, war and far; Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
One, anemone, Balmoral, Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel; Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven. Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Gertrude, German, wind and mind, We say hallowed, but allowed, Is a paling stout and spikey?
Scene, Melpomene, mankind. People, leopard, towed, but vowed. Won't it make you lose your wits,
Mark the differences, moreover, Writing groats and saying grits?
Billet does not rhyme with ballet, Between mover, cover, clover; It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet. Leeches, breeches, wise, precise, Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Blood and flood are not like food, Chalice, but police and lice; Islington and Isle of Wight,
Nor is mould like should and would. Camel, constable, unstable, Housewife, verdict and indict.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad, Principle, disciple, label.
Toward, to forward, to reward. Finally, which rhymes with enough—
And your pronunciation's OK Petal, panel, and canal, Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
When you correctly say croquet, Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal. Hiccough has the sound of cup.
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve, Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair, My advice is to give up!!
Friend and fiend, alive and live. Senator, spectator, mayor.