Either means the people of England or a sadly mangled language. Once belonging to the Germanic Anglo-Saxons, the language has since become influenced by scores of other languages, slowly destroying the English language and its structure and rules.
Shanty (From Gaelic "
Sean taigh"("old house")), galore (from Gaelic "gu leòr" ("enough")), whiskey (from Gaelic "uisge" ("
water")), hamburger (from "Hamburg steak"),
flower (from French "fleur", itself from Latin "flor"), bloom (from German "blum" ("
flower")) and countless other words from so many other languages have, for better or worse, steeped into English.
"Let’
s face it: English is a
crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant or 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 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, two indices? Is cheese the plural of choose?
If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught? If a
vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
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? 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 the weather be hot as hell one
day an cold as hell another?
When a house burns up, it burns down. You fill in a form by filling it out and an alarm clock goes off by going on.
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?
Now I know why I flunked my English. It’s not my fault; the silly language doesn’t quite know whether it’s coming or going." -Richard Lederer.
