Oops, I meant "such" not "suck" :D
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Philip Arnold [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2003 7:03 PM
> To: CF-Community
> Subject: English is suck a crazy language
>
>
> Richard Lederer celebrated his 65th birthday last week.
> Here is his most frequently quoted piece.
>
> Richard Lederer <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> "English is a Crazy Language"
> From: "Crazy English"
> By Richard Lederer
>
> English has acquired the largest vocabulary of all the
> world's languages, perhaps as many as two million words, and
> has generated one of the noblest bodies of literature in the
> annals of the human race. Nonetheless, it is now time to face
> the fact that English is a crazy language -- the most loopy
> and wiggy of all tongues.
>
> In what other language do people drive in a parkway and park
> in a driveway?
>
> In what other language do people play at a recital and recite
> at a play?
>
> Why does night fall but never break and day break but never fall?
>
> Why is it that when we transport something by car, it's
> called a shipment, but when we transport something by ship,
> it's called cargo?
>
> Why does a man get a hernia and a woman a hysterectomy?
>
> Why do we pack suits in a garment bag and garments in a suitcase?
>
> Why do privates eat in the general mess and generals eat in
> the private mess?
>
> Why do we call it newsprint when it contains no printing but
> when we put print on it, we call it a newspaper?
>
> Why are people who ride motorcycles called bikers and people
> who ride bikes called cyclists?
>
> Why -- in our crazy language -- can your nose run and your feet smell?
>
> Language is like the air we breathe. It's invisible,
> inescapable, indispensable, and we take it for granted. But,
> when we take the time to step back and listen to the sounds
> that escape from the holes in people's faces and to explore
> the paradoxes and vagaries of English, we find that hot dogs
> can be cold, darkrooms can be lit, homework can be done in
> school, nightmares can take place in broad daylight while
> morning sickness and daydreaming can take place at night,
> tomboys are girls and midwives can be men, hours --
> especially happy hours and rush hours -- often last longer
> than sixty minutes, quicksand works very slowly, boxing rings
> are square, silverware and glasses can be made of plastic and
> tablecloths of paper, most telephones are dialed by being
> punched (or pushed?), and most bathrooms don't have any baths
> in them. In fact, a dog can go to the bathroom under a tree
> -- no bath, no room; it's still going to the bathroom. And
> doesn't it seem, a little bizarre that we go to the bathroom
> in order to go to the bathroom?
>
> Why is it that a woman can man a station but a man can't
> woman one, that a man can father a movement but a woman can't
> mother one, and that a king rules a kingdom but a queen
> doesn't rule a queendom? How did all those Renaissance men
> reproduce when there don't seem to have been any Renaissance women?
>
> Sometimes you have to believe that all English speakers
> should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane:
>
> In what other language do they call the third hand on the
> clock the second hand?
>
> Why do they call them apartments when they're all together?
>
> Why do we call them buildings, when they're already built?
>
> Why it is called a TV set when you get only one?
>
> Why is phonetic not spelled phonetically?
>
> Why is it so hard to remember how to spell mnemonic?
>
> Why doesn't onomatopoeia sound like what it is?
>
> Why is the word abbreviation so long?
>
> Why is diminutive so undiminutive?
>
> Why does the word monosyllabic consist of five syllables?
>
> Why is there no synonym for synonym or thesaurus?
>
> And why, pray tell, does lisp have an s in it?
>
> English is crazy.
>
> If adults commit adultery, do infants commit infantry? If
> olive oil is made from olives, what do they make baby oil
> from? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a
> humanitarian consume? If pro and con are opposites, is
> congress the opposite of progress?
>
> Why can you call a woman a mouse but not a rat -- a kitten
> but not a cat? Why is it that a woman can be a vision, but
> not a sight -- unless your eyes hurt? Then she can be "a
> sight for sore eyes."
>
> A writer is someone who writes, and a stinger is something
> that stings. But fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce,
> hammers don't ham, humdingers don't humding, ushers don't
> ush, and haberdashers do not haberdash.
>
> If the plural of tooth is teeth, shouldn't the plural of
> booth be beeth? One goose, two geese -- so one moose, two
> meese? One index, two indices -- one Kleenex, two Kleenices?
> If people ring a bell today and rang a bell yesterday, why
> don't we say that they flang a ball? If they wrote a letter,
> perhaps they also bote their tongue. If the teacher taught,
> why isn't it also true that the preacher praught? Why is it
> that the sun shone yesterday while I shined my shoes, that I
> treaded water and then trod on the beach, and that I flew out
> to see a World Series game in which my favorite player flied out?
>
> If we conceive a conception and receive at a reception, why
> don't we grieve a greption and believe a beleption? If a
> firefighter fights fire, what does a freedom fighter fight?
> If a horsehair mat is made from the hair of horses, from what
> is a mohair coat made?
>
> A slim chance and a fat chance are the same, as are a
> caregiver and a caretaker, a bad licking and a good licking,
> and "What's going on?" and "What's coming off?" But a wise
> man and a wise guy are opposites. How can sharp speech and
> blunt speech be the same and quite a lot and quite a few the
> same, while overlook and oversee are opposites? How can the
> weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell the next?
>
> If button and unbutton and tie and untie are opposites, why
> are loosen and unloosen and ravel and unravel the same? If
> bad is the opposite of good, hard the opposite of soft, and
> up the opposite of down, why are badly and goodly, hardly and
> softly, and upright and downright not opposing pairs? If
> harmless actions are the opposite of harmful actions, why are
> shameful and shameless behavior the same and pricey objects
> less expensive than priceless ones? If appropriate and
> inappropriate remarks and passable and impassable mountain
> trails are opposites, why are flammable and inflammable
> materials, heritable and inheritable property, and passive
> and impassive people the same? How can valuable objects be
> less valuable than invaluable ones? If uplift is the same as
> lift up, why are upset and set up opposite in meaning? Why
> are pertinent and impertinent, canny and uncanny, and famous
> and infamous neither opposites nor the same? How can raise
> and raze and reckless and wreckless be opposites when each
> pair contains the same sound?
>
> Why is it that when the sun or the moon or the stars are out,
> they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are
> invisible; that when I clip a coupon from a newspaper I
> separate it, but when I clip a coupon to a newspaper, I
> fasten it; and that when I wind up my watch, I start it, but
> when I wind up this essay, I shall end it?
>
> English is a crazy language.
>
> How can expressions like "I'm mad about my flat," "No
> football coaches allowed," "I'll come by in the morning and
> knock you up," and "Keep your pecker up" convey such
> different messages in two countries that purport to speak the
> same English?
>
> How can it be easier to assent than to dissent but harder to
> ascend than to descend? Why is it that a man with hair on his
> head has more hair than a man with hairs on his head; that if
> you decide to be bad forever, you choose to be bad for good;
> and that if you choose to wear only your left shoe, then your
> left one is right and your right one is left? Right?
>
> Small wonder that we English users are constantly standing
> meaning on its head. Let's look at a number of familiar
> English words and phrases that turn out to mean the opposite
> or something very different from what we think they mean:
>
> A waiter. Why do they call those food servers waiters, when
> it's the customers who do the waiting?
>
> I could care less. I couldn't care less is the clearer, more
> accurate version. Why do so many people delete the negative
> from this statement? Because they are afraid that the
> n't...less combination will make a double negative, which is a no-no.
>
> I really miss not seeing you. Whenever people say this to me,
> I feel like responding, "All right, I'll leave!" Here
> speakers throw in a gratuitous negative, not, even though I
> really miss seeing you is what they want to say.
>
> The movie kept me literally glued to my seat. The chances of
> our buttocks being literally epoxied to a seat are about as
> small as the chances of our literally rolling in the aisles
> while watching a funny movie or literally drowning in tears
> while watching a sad one. We actually mean The movie kept me
> figuratively glued to my seat -- but who needs figuratively, anyway?
>
> A non-stop flight. Never get on one of these. You'll never get down.
>
> A near miss. A near miss is, in reality, a collision. A close
> call is actually a near hit.
>
> My idea fell between the cracks. If something fell between
> the cracks, didn't it land smack on the planks or the
> concrete? Shouldn't that be my idea fell into the cracks (or
> between the boards)?
>
> A hot water heater. Who heats hot water? This is similar to
> garbage disposal. Actually, the stuff isn't garbage until
> after you dispose of it.
>
> A hot cup of coffee. Here again the English language gets us
> in hot water. Who cares if the cup is hot? Surely we mean a
> cup of hot coffee.
>
> Doughnut holes. Aren't those little treats really doughnut
> balls? The holes are what's left in the original doughnut.
> (And if a candy cane is shaped like a cane, why isn't a
> doughnut shaped like a nut?)
>
> I want to have my cake and eat it too. Shouldn't this
> timeworn cliche be I want to eat my cake and have it too?
> Isn't the logical sequence that one hopes to eat the cake and
> then still possess it?
>
> A one-night stand. So who's standing? Similarly, to sleep
> with someone. Who's sleeping?
>
> I'll follow you to the ends of the earth. Let the word go out
> to the four corners of the earth that ever since Columbus we
> have known that the earth doesn't have any ends.
>
> It's neither here nor there. Then where is it?
>
> Extraordinary. If extra-fine means "even finer than fine" and
> extra-large "even larger than large," why doesn't
> extraordinary mean "even more ordinary than ordinary"?
>
> The first century B.C. These hundred years occurred much
> longer ago than people imagined. What we call the first
> century B.C. was, in fact the last century B.C.
>
> Daylight saving time. Not a single second of daylight is
> saved by this ploy.
>
> The announcement was made by a nameless official. Just about
> everyone has a name, even officials. Surely what is meant is
> "The announcement was made by an unnamed official."
>
> Preplan, preboard, preheat, and prerecord. Aren't people who
> do this simply planning, boarding, heating, and recording?
> Who needs the pretentious prefix? I have even seen shows
> "prerecorded before a live audience," certainly preferable to
> prerecording before a dead audience.
>
> Pull up a chair. We don't really pull a chair up; we pull it
> along the ground. We don't pick up the phone; we pick up the
> receiver. And we don't really throw up; we throw out.
>
> Put on your shoes and socks. This is an exceedingly difficult
> maneuver. Most of us put on our socks first, then our shoes.
>
> A hit-and-run play. If you know your baseball, you know that
> the sequence constitutes "a run-and-hit play."
>
> The bus goes back and forth between the terminal and the
> airport. Again we find mass confusion about the order of
> events. You have to go forth before you can go back.
>
> I got caught in one of the biggest traffic bottlenecks of the
> year. The bigger the bottleneck, the more freely the contents
> of the bottle flow through it. To be true to the metaphor, we
> should say, I got caught in one of the smallest traffic
> bottlenecks of the year.
>
> Underwater and underground. Things that we claim are
> underwater and underground are obviously surrounded by, not
> under the water and ground.
>
> I lucked out. To luck out sounds as if you're out of luck.
> Don't you mean I lucked in?
>
> Because we speakers and writers of English seem to have our
> heads screwed on backwards, we constantly misperceive our
> bodies, often saying just the opposite of what we mean:
>
> Watch your head. I keep seeing this sign on low doorways, but
> I haven't figured out how to follow the instructions. Trying
> to watch your head is like trying to bite your teeth.
>
> They're head over heels in love. That's nice, but all of us
> do almost everything head over heels. If we are trying to
> create an image of people doing cartwheels and somersaults,
> why don't we say, They're heels over head in love?
>
> Put your best foot forward. Now let's see.... We have a good
> foot and a better foot -- but we don't have a third -- and
> best -- foot. It's our better foot we want to put forward.
> This grammar atrocity is akin to May the best team win.
> Usually there are only two teams in the contest. Similarly,
> in any list of bestsellers. only the most popular book is
> genuinely a bestseller. All the rest are bettersellers.
>
> Keep a stiff upper lip. When we are disappointed or afraid,
> which lip do we try to control? The lower lip, of course, is
> the one we are trying to keep from quivering.
>
> I'm speaking tongue in cheek. So how can anyone understand you?
>
> Skinny. If fatty means "full of fat," shouldn't skinny mean
> "full of skin"?
>
> They do things behind my back. You want they should do things
> in front of your back?
>
> They did it ass backwards. What's wrong with that? We do
> everything ass backwards.
>
> English is weird.
>
> In the rigid expressions that wear tonal grooves in the
> record of our language, beck can appear only with call,
> cranny with nook, hue with cry, main with might, fettle only
> with fine, aback with taken, caboodle with kit. and spick and
> span only with each other. Why must all shrifts be short, all
> lucre filthy, all bystanders innocent, and all bedfellows
> strange? I'm convinced that some shrifts are lengthy and that
> some lucre is squeaky clean, and I've certainly met guilty
> bystanders and perfectly normal bedfellows.
>
> Why is it that only swoops are fell? Sure, the verbivorous
> William Shakespeare invented the expression "one fell swoop,"
> but why can't strokes, swings, acts, and the like also be
> fell? Why are we allowed to vent our spleens but never our
> kidneys or livers? Why must it be only our minds that are
> boggled and never our eyes or our hearts? Why can't eyes and
> jars be ajar, as well as doors? Why must aspersions always be
> cast and never hurled or lobbed?
>
> Doesn't it seem just a little wifty that we can make amends
> but never just one amend; that no matter how carefully we
> comb through the annals of history, we can never discover
> just one annal; that we can never pull a shenanigan, be in a
> doldrum, eat an egg Benedict, or get just one jitter, a
> willy, a delirium tremen, or a heebie-jeebie. Why, sifting
> through the wreckage of a disaster, can we never find just
> one smithereen?
>
> Indeed, this whole business of plurals that don't have
> matching singulars reminds me to ask this burning question,
> one that has puzzled scholars for decades: If you have a
> bunch of odds and ends and you get rid of or sell off all but
> one of them, what do you call that doohickey with which you're left?
>
> What do you make of the fact that we can talk about certain
> things and ideas only when they are absent? Once they appear,
> our blessed English doesn't allow us to describe them. Have
> you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful gown? Have
> you ever run into someone who was combobulated, sheveled,
> gruntled, chalant, plussed, ruly, gainly, maculate,
> pecunious, or peccable? Have you ever met a sung hero or
> experienced requited love? I know people who are no spring
> chickens, but where, pray tell, are the people who are spring
> chickens? Where are the people who actually would hurt a fly?
> All the time I meet people who are great shakes, who can cut
> the mustard, who can fight City Hall, who are my cup of tea,
> who would lift a finger to help, who would give you the time
> of day, and whom I would touch with a ten-foot pole, but I
> can't talk about them in English -- and that is a laughing matter.
>
> If the truth be told, all languages are a little crazy. As
> Walt Whitman might proclaim, they contradict themselves.
> That's because language is invented, not discovered, by boys
> and girls and men and women, not computers. As such, language
> reflects the creative and fearful asymmetry of the human
> race, which, of course, isn't really a race at all.
>
> That's why we wear a pair of pants but, except on very cold
> days, not a pair of shirts. That's why men wear a bathing
> suit and bathing trunks at the same time. That's why
> brassiere is singular but panties is plural. That's why
> there's a team in Toronto called the Maple Leafs and another
> in Minnesota called the Timberwolves.
>
> That's why six, seven, eight, and nine change to sixty,
> seventy, eighty, and ninety, but two, three, four, and five
> do not become twoty, threety, fourty, and fivety. That's why
> first-degree murder is more serious than third-degree murder
> but a third-degree burn is more serious than a first-degree
> burn. That's why we can open up the floor, climb the walls,
> raise the roof, pick up the house, and bring down the house.
>
> In his essay "The Awful German Language," Mark Twain spoofs
> the confusion engendered by German gender by translating
> literally from a conversation in a German Sunday school book:
> "Gretchen. Wilhelm, where is the turnip? Wilhelm. She has
> gone to the kitchen. Gretchen. Where is the accomplished and
> beautiful English maiden? Wilhelm. It has gone to the opera."
> Twain continues: "A tree is male, its buds are female, its
> leaves are neuter; horses are sexless, dogs are male, cats
> are female -- tomcats included."
>
> Still, you have to marvel at the unique lunacy of the English
> language, in which you can turn a light on and you can turn a
> light off and you can turn a light out, but you can't turn a
> light in; in which the sun comes up and goes down, but prices
> go up and come down -- a gloriously wiggy tongue in which
> your house can simultaneously burn up and burn down and your
> car can slow up and slow down, in which you fill in a form by
> filling out a form, in which your alarm clock goes off by
> going on, in which you are inoculated for measles by being
> inoculated against measles, in which you add up a column of
> figures by adding them down, and in which you first chop a
> tree down -- and then you chop it up.
>
>
>
>
>
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