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english is the most widely used language in the history of our planet. one in every 7 humans can speak it. more than half of the world's books and 3 quarters of international mail is in english. of all the languages,it has the largest vocabulary - perhaps as many as 2 million words. nonetheless, 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, that you comb thru 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?
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? 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 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.
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10/20/2005- by NikNak
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"crunk" is good? among the hot new words, it's "ova-wicked," even "uberbuff." they're just some of the entries in a book published thursday that lists newly coined words as well as jargon used in technology, politics and the media.
"crunk" — the american hybrid for crazy and drunk — is an example of how words evolve from popular culture, according to susie dent, author of "fanboys and overdogs: the language report."
"crunk is generating all sorts of offshoot terms in the u.s. — crunk 'n' b, crunk rock, crunkster — and looks set to catch on in britain, too," dent said. "new words travel from one variety of english to another and at a rapidly increasing rate, thanks to the way language is exchanged today over e-mail, chat-rooms, tv, etc."
dent's new book also discusses the tendency "big up" our language. nothing is ever good or even great anymore — instead, we opt for "ova-wicked" and "uberbuff." government appointees are tsars, and experts are meisters.
job titles also reflect this kind of inflation. the head of verbal communications is really just a receptionist, while stockboys have been promoted to stock replenishment executives, she said.
as for the "fanboys" in the book's title, dent said they're guys who are absorbed by a passion for comic books or computer games.
the book also looks at vocabulary shifts from the past century. the year 1905 saw the introduction of "peace economy." with the next year came "tyrannosaurus." many words on the list are related to events — 1940 introduced "jim crow" and 1980 brought "reaganomics."
"podcasting" was last year's word. the frontrunner for the 2005 word of the year is "sudoku," the logic puzzle that has replaced crosswords as a favorite way to kill time over lunch break.
"fanboys" is dent's third annual language review book, publicist sarah kidd said. dent is a resident word expert on london's channel 4's "countdown" program.
i'm pretty much scared to see where the english language will be in 20 years...
oddyahoo
