The English Language still baffles newcomers

(excerpt from "The View from Here: Selected Writings" by Jim Reed (Reedmark Publications, 2004))

Is it any wonder newcomers to our shores have difficulty learning our language when "knee deep" in trouble means the same as "up to your neck," and when "slim chance" and "fat chance" mean the same thing? And when a wise man and wise guy are opposites?

There is no ham in hamburger, no egg in eggplant, no apple nor pine in pineapple, no horse in horseradish. Sweet meats are candies, while sweetbreads are meat.

We ship by truck and send cargo by ship. Boxing rings are square, and square dancers go around in circles. Your house can burn up as it burns down. You fill in a form by filling it out. An alarm goes off by going on. We drive on parkways and park on driveways. Apartments are stuck together. Blackberries are red when they are green.

To further confuse people trying to learn our language, there are a lot of words spelled the same, but with different pronunciations and meanings. The nurse wound the bandage around the wound. The Boy Scout master could lead if he could get the lead out. Our garden is used to produce produce. The city dump was so full it had to refuse more refuse. There was a row among boatmen about how to row. Since there is no time like the present, the finance committee thought it was time to present the present.

You may see a lone mouse, or a whole nest of mice, but the plural of house is houses, not hice. The plural of box is boxes, but the plural of ox should be oxen, not oxes.

And how do we explain these six words that are all spelled alike, but sound completely different from each other: plough, rough, cough, dough, through, and hiccough?

Quicksand works slowly. A guinea pig is neither a guinea fowl nor a pig. Some times noses run and feet smell. When stars are out, they are visible, but when lights are out, they are invisible.

About the time our newcomer feels he is beginning to grasp some of our language, along comes someone using slang expressions that have become a part of our everyday language. Words like barn-burner, which has nothing to do with a rural outbuilding afire. Rather it refers to anything remarkable.

Then we have baffle gab, the incomprehensible talk or writing of bureaucrats. Ambiguous, verbose expression. Gobbledygook.

One reason for the size of the Congressional Record and Federal Register is Washington's fondness for words. This bureaucratic babble was an Interior Department's expression: "directly impace the visual quality of the present environment," means, in English, "spoil the view."

Unfortunately, when young people hear newscasters, professional athletes and other entertainers using substandard English, they pick it up. Newspaper columnist Charley Reese once wrote that politicians and the media are perpetually corrupting the language. "So many people play loose with the language that it is being robbed of its meaning," he said. Reese also observed that we can measure the rise or decline of civilization by its use of language.