If pro and con are opposites is congress the opposite of progress?
English is the most widely used language in the histry of our planet. One in every seven human beings can speak it. More than half of the world’s books and three quarters of international mail are in English of all languages, English has the largest vocabulary, perhaps as many as two million words and one of the noblest bodies of literature. Never the less, let’s face it : English is a crezy language., There is no egg in eggplant, neither pine nor apple in pineapple and no ham in a hamburger. English fries in france. Sweet  meats are candy, while sweetbreads,which aren’t sweet, are meat.
We take English for granted. But when we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither a pig not from guinea.
And why is it that a writer writes, but fingers don’t fing grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, shouldn’t the plural of booth be teeht? One goose two geese so one moose, two meese? One index, two indices ?
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and you get rid of all but one, what do you call it? If the teacher taught, why isn’t it true that a preaches prought? If a vegetatian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? If you wrote a letter, perhaps you also bote you tongue?
Sometimes I wonder if all English speakers should be committed to an asylum for being verbally insane. In what other language do people reciet at a play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? 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 wish guy are opposites? How can overlook be opposites while quite a few are alike? How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell the next?
You have to marvel at the unique lauacy of a language in which your house can burn up as if burned down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which your alarm clock goes off by going on.
English was invented by people, not computers and it reflects the creativity of the human  race. That is why, when stars are out, they are visible but when  the lights are out they are invisible. And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this article, I end it