- 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.
- Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.
- We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
- And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?
- If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth?
- One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese?
- One index, 2 indices?
- Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend?
- If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
- 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. In what language do people recite at a play and 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 wise guy are opposites?
- You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.
- English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all.
- That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.
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