English is easy

English is easy – isn’t it?

Let’s face it – English is an odd language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins were not invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which are not 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 do not fing, grocers do not groce and hammers do not ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why is the plural of booth not beeth? One goose, two geese. So if you have one moose, why not two meese? One index, two indices? Does it not seem odd that you make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why do preachers not 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 a play and play a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by sea? Have noses than 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 quite the opposite? 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 while 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 that is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

But, there is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter, and that is UP.

It is easy to understand UP, meaning towards the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP? At a meeting, why does a topic come UP? Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report?

We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver; we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some people fix UP the old car. At other times the little word has a really special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special.

And this UP is confusing. A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP. We open UP a shop in the morning and we close it UP at night. We seem to be a little confused about UP! To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look UP the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost a quarter of a page and can add UP to about 30 definitions. If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you do not give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more. When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When the sun comes out, we say it is clearing UP. When it rains, it wets the earth and messes things UP. When it does not rain for a while, things dry UP.

I could go on and on, but I will finish UP here, for now my space is UP so it is time to shut UP!

Taken from an in-flight magazine