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 أليست الإنجليزية لغة سخيفة؟ (Isn't English A silly Language )
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Isn't English A silly Language
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 it is 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 – one moose, two meese? And one index, two indices?
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend, that you comb through annals of history but not through a single annal? If you have a collection of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why don't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? If you wrote a letter, did you brote your tongue?
Sometimes I think all English speakers should be commited to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital; ship by trucks, 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 on 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 s sung hero or experienced requited love? Have you ever run into someone who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable? And where all those people who ARE spring chickens or who WOULD 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 and alarm clock goes off by going on.
English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of human race (which, of course, isn't a race at all). That is why, when the stars are out the are visible, but when the lights are out the are invisible. And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it.
المصدر: كتيب The GP Press Style Guide
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نزار محمد عثمان
فيس بوك
تويتر
انستقرام
يوتيوب
بنتيريست