Bad Words

I guess because I now write for a living, (whereas several years ago, I did not), I’m more in tune to the goofiness of our language than I used to be. In fact, I guess I can somewhat understand why immigrants to this great country of ours aren’t always eager to learn English. Of course, there was a time when learning the language was a requirement – apparently those days are long-gone. But, for those who want to become productive citizens and communicate among us – well, they’ve got their work cut out for them.
The biggest thing with the English language is, there seems to be no common sense involved. It’s like the same people who design roadwork detours were also in charge of coming up with the words we use – must’ve been their ancestors. Plurals, for example, have no consistency whatsoever. Take the word “Mouse”. If you have more than one mouse, you get mice. Why then, if you own more than one “house” do you not have “hice”? You don’t. You have “houses”. A goose is a nice bird. Find a flock of them and you’ll see “geese”. A herd of “moose”, however, is not meese, but moose. Like “fish”, the plural of moose is moose. (If you’re a fan of the Godfather movies, you may accept “swimming with the fishes”, but for the rest of us, it’s still fish). Why, then, does a genie grant you three “wishes” when you rub his lamp? Wouldn’t it make more sense if he granted you three wish?
Numbers are another problem. Who ever decided that we’d have something totally out of whack between ten and twenty? 21 is pronounced “twenty-one”. A direct conversion of the words “two” and “ten” … “TW-EN-ty” Thirty is the same way, as is forty, (which should be spelled “fourty”), and so-on. So why the word “eleven” instead of onety-one? Twelve is really messed up as it specifies that the “two” should come first, followed apparently by an elf. Who thought that up? Shouldn’t it be “onety-two”? When you get to 100, you pronounce it “one-hundred”, not “eleventy-zero”. Somebody was really drunk when they came up with this stuff.
Another obvious error is the apparent laziness – or lack of creativity – of whomever was in charge of coming up with the Queen’s English. We have entirely too many words that are spelled the exact same, but mean totally different things. You really have to look at the word within it’s intended context to guess which version the writer is implying – which can be quite confusing. “Lead”, for example, can be a metal taken from the ground and used in the standard #2 pencil, among other things. Probably causes cancer, too. (What doesn’t). However, if you’re in front of other people, you are in the “lead”. Hmm. So, let’s use the same word for being the fastest as the word for a heavy, inanimate object. Makes good sense there. Why not use the word “leed”? You have a “head” on your shoulders, but you “heed” someone’s warning. Pronunciation is the same – spelling is different. They went to the trouble of spelling “whale” with a silent “h”, but made an annoying cry a wail. No confusion there. “Weather” is outside, but “whether” you spell it right is up to you. And, speaking of weather, (not whether), why are meteorologists weathermen and not weatherologists? Do meteors affect our weather? What do you call a guy who studies meteors? Not a meteorologist, and considering they could be asteroids, you can’t have that because an astrologist studies stars. What’s a starologist do? Maybe they’re the ones selling maps on Hollywood street corners?
Some words are also spelled the same, but mean different things based on whether they are nouns, verbs, pronouns or adjectives. The aforementioned “goose”, as a noun, is a bird. “Goose” as a verb, however, is a real pain in the … well, you know. And whoever thought to “duck” to avoid something? I’ve never seen a “duck” “duck”. They fly, they swim, they flip upside down in the water, which is kind of a “duck ducking”, I suppose, but still – couldn’t we have called it something more descriptive. Like “bend down?” And what does it “mean” if someone is “mean”? Are they “mean” as in yell at everyone, climb the water-tower with a rifle “mean”, or do they have a sense of meaning, therefore making them a “mean” person? Compound that with “time” and you get “meantime”, which basically is the interim time between two events – now and later. What the heck does that mean? Meanwhile, everyone is confused.
Of course, one could ponder for hours why baby cows are calves but baby crows are not cralves. Or why a “crow” is pronounced “oh” instead of “ow” in the first place. We could wonder why “heart” is pronounced like “cart” instead of “hear”. Why when you “die”, you’ve “died”, yet when you “fly”, you’ve “flown”, (or flew – not to be confused with flu, which could be an ailment or part of your chimney, but is spelled differently than “shoe”). Had we the time and space, I’d also ask you why a nail-gun shoots nails, a staple-gun shoots staples, a shotgun (not hyphenated) shoots shot, but a gun is a gun, not a bullet-gun. And perhaps we’d get into the drive on the parkway and park on the driveway thing, as well. That’s always been a popular discussion.
Fortunately, however, we’ve got to end this column here since we’re out of space, (as in “room”, not “space” as in the final frontier … which should be spelled “frontear”, except then people might pronounce it “frontare” like ripping paper rather than “fronteer” like crying). Well, I think you get my point, (as in my meaning, not “pointing” at something … and not the sharp edge of a pencil).