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, two geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2
indeces?

Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends, but not one
amend; that you comb through 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 preachers 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 a play and play a recital?
Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run
and feet that smell? Park on driveways and drive on
parkways?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a
wise man and a 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 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 is
not 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.