We enjoyed Mexico's hospitality, and now we're back in the states spreading the joy of living south of the border!

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

English is a crazy language

Unfortunately, I do not have more news or commentary about living in Mexico. Moving 'back' to the US has been personally and professionally challenging. Our next adventure is still in the future, it seems, so right now we're just trying to stay connected with our friends and experiences of Mexico. Dave is lucky bc he is meeting with some of our Mexican friends in Tokyo this week - they're all there on a business trip.

In the meantime, I thought I'd share a funny story I just read about the English language. There's a joke in Mexico that goes, "Why is it every Mexican speaks 75% English?" The truth is, most Mexicans can barely say 10 words in English. And that's because English is hard:

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. We take English for Granted.
If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So.. one moose, 2 meese?
If teachers taught, why didn't preachers 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. What other reason could there be for saying that people recite at a play and play at a recital? Or, ship cargo by truck and send cargo by ship? Or, have noses that 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 opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike?
English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race (which of course, isn't a race at all.)


trust me, every language has it's weird parts. And knowing those idiosyncrasies is what proves we're 'good' at it. I'll never learn all of those for Spanish, at least I don't think so, but it's still fun to try.

1 comment:

Claire said...

That's why teaching English is so challenging!