As I sit down to write todays entry I happily munch on some pot-roast that was sitting in my fridge. I am planning on eating some ice cream later and then maybe washing it down with some chocolate milk. I stopped mid bite and started thinking, how is it that we can come up with such easy words when we deal with food yet with everything else we come up with insane words. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, I know, Latin and Greek; however, I wonder why we should be slaves to dead languages. Why do we not come up with easier words, things that mean what they look like (you know, like pot roast, a roast in a pot) and do not require looking up. Words in the English language are insane, they are there simply to drive us mad.
So I am sitting there contemplating my now cold pot-roast when I realize that we really just have these insane words to FUCK WITH EVERYBODY. I mean come on, we drive on a park-way and park on a drive-way. What is up with that? What about the word dyslexia? Sure, we should screw with the people who have to spell phonetically only. Or, even better, how about the word 'Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia': you know, that word means somebody who is afraid of big words. “I have hippo, hippo, hippo, you know what, I am scared of large words”. Ahh, the irony of the English language.
It gets even better if you start to look at other ironies you can find. While that hippo word is probably the greatest of these ironies, look at any page in the dictionary and I am sure you will find some. Or, take a look at CNN, which is where I found these gems (all of these are from articles within the last year): The proponent of a bill to ban selling pot-flavored candy to kids has the last name stoner - The head of NY (I think it was that state) child-sex-unit has the last name Lolita. I mean, come on, comedians could not come up with better stuff. Or look at other stuff - Fast food; it is not that fast (7 minutes is a long time, I could get Quiznos quicker (and we do not call them fast)) and not really food.
Really, what it comes down to, is that English is extremely screwed up. Not only do we have rules that make no sense to foreigners (like house=house whereas mouse=mice) but we have random words that come from other languages. Did you know that the word 'fuck' comes from German meaning to strike (thank you Monty Python for this gem)? However, I don't think I have ever used it, or even heard it used, in that manner. Come on people, the French have some organization that decides their language, why don't we. It is high time that we stop screwing with people and come up with some words that make sense and are usable by those who need to use them.
That said, my pot-roast is now cold. Hmph...
As always, please leave any comments, no matter how large or how small about the contents of this blog post. Also, please leave any comments/suggestions about this site/post as a whole.
Feel free to e-mail me if you so wish too instead.
Thanks,
Robert M. Barga,
Editor of http://whalertly.blogspot.com/
barga.24@osu.edu
Stumble It!
3 comments:
LOL....great article. I love words and like you find so many of them just frigging bizarre.
I have words I just love and others I find repugnant. I love the word Talladega. I hate the word quaff. What the hell kind of word is quaff? Sounds nasty.
Anyway, thanks for the post.
quaff... well, i know it is the root of quaffel in Harry Potter
What does it mean?
Good one.
You are absolutely right, though. The English language has no rhyme or reason.
Hence why it is commonly considered one of the hardest languages to learn.
Post a Comment