{"id":9218,"date":"2022-12-27T13:27:47","date_gmt":"2022-12-27T18:27:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auerbach-intl.com\/?p=9218"},"modified":"2022-12-27T13:27:47","modified_gmt":"2022-12-27T18:27:47","slug":"a-year-end-gift-the-craziness-of-english","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auerbach-intl.com\/staging\/a-year-end-gift-the-craziness-of-english\/","title":{"rendered":"A year-end gift: The craziness of English"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1023\" height=\"500\" src=\"https:\/\/auerbach-intl.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/auerbach-intl-blog.jpg\" alt=\"auerbach intl blog\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/auerbach-intl.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/auerbach-intl-blog.jpg 1023w, https:\/\/auerbach-intl.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/1_auerbach-intl-blog-300x147.jpg 300w, https:\/\/auerbach-intl.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/1_auerbach-intl-blog-768x375.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1023px) 100vw, 1023px\" \/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>As a year-end gift to our clients and supporters, we wanted to offer an amusing example of the total craziness of the English language. Ours is a jumble of adoptions from many peoples, cultures and other languages formed over more than 1000 years; words with double meanings or pronunciations; all mixed with logic, illogic, standards and exceptions.<\/p>\n<p>For example:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>We have noses that run and feet that smell.<\/li>\n<li>An alarm goes off by going on, and a house burns up as it burns down.<\/li>\n<li>Quicksand works slowly, and boxing rings are square.<\/li>\n<li>Writers write but fingers don\u2019t fing.<\/li>\n<li>One fills in a form by filling it out.<\/li>\n<li>The invalid\u2019s insurance was invalid.<\/li>\n<li>I shed a tear when I saw a tear in the painting.<\/li>\n<li>A vegetarian eats vegetables. So what does a humanitarian eat?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And then we have the absurdity of plurals:<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes<br \/>But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.<br \/>One fowl is a goose but two are called geese,<br \/>Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.<\/p>\n<p>You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice<br \/>But the plural of house is houses, not hice.<br \/>If the plural of man is always called men,<br \/>Why shouldn\u2019t the plural of pan become pen?<\/p>\n<p>I can speak of my foot and show you my feet,<br \/>But if I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?<br \/>If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,<br \/>Why shouldn\u2019t the plural of booth be called beeth?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u201d is for one and two would be those<br \/>Yet hat in the plural should never be hose<br \/>and the plural of cat is cats, and not cose.<br \/>We speak of a brother and also of brethren,<br \/>But though we can say mother, we never say methren.<br \/>The masculine pronouns are he, his and him<br \/>So why aren\u2019t the feminines she, shis and shim?<\/p>\n<p>When I wind up a watch, I start it.<br \/>When I wind up this email, I end it.<\/p>\n<p>If English were a person, it would be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. It\u2019s amazing that foreigners learn it so well and even more wonderful that <a href=\"https:\/\/imrant22.sg-host.com\/\">we translate<\/a> it so accurately into languages that are slightly less crazy.<\/p>\n<p>With best wishes for a healthy, prosperous and fulfilling 2023, we look forward to serving you in the new year.<\/p>\n<p>Philip Auerbach<br \/>Founder, President &amp; CEO<br \/>Auerbach International<br \/>Headquarters &#8211; 415-592-0042 x107<br \/><a href=\"mailto:philip@auerbach-intl.com\">philip@auerbach-intl.com<\/a><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/imrant22.sg-host.com\/\">www.auerbach-intl.com<\/a><br \/><a href=\"mailto:translations@auerbach-intl.com\">translations@auerbach-intl.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>\u201c3 Decades. 2 Billion Words. A+ Accuracy. Superior Translation Services.&#8221;<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<h5>Share this entry<\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li data-social=\"facebook\">\n                    <a><br \/>\n                                                                                            <\/a>\n                <\/li>\n<li data-social=\"twitter\">\n                    <a><br \/>\n                                                                                            <\/a>\n                <\/li>\n<li data-social=\"whatsapp\">\n                    <a><br \/>\n                                                                                            <\/a>\n                <\/li>\n<li data-social=\"pinterest\">\n                    <a><br \/>\n                                                                                            <\/a>\n                <\/li>\n<li data-social=\"linkedin\">\n                    <a><br \/>\n                                                                                            <\/a>\n                <\/li>\n<li data-social=\"tumblr\">\n                    <a><br \/>\n                                                                                            <\/a>\n                <\/li>\n<li data-social=\"vkontakte\">\n                    <a><br \/>\n                                                                                            <\/a>\n                <\/li>\n<li data-social=\"reddit\">\n                    <a><br \/>\n                                                                                            <\/a>\n                <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As a year-end gift to our clients and supporters, we wanted to offer an amusing example of the total craziness of the English language. Ours is a jumble of adoptions from many peoples, cultures and other languages formed over more than 1000 years; words with double meanings or pronunciations; all mixed with logic, illogic, standards&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/auerbach-intl.com\/staging\/a-year-end-gift-the-craziness-of-english\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">A year-end gift: The craziness of English<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5853,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_theme","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-newsletter","entry"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auerbach-intl.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auerbach-intl.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auerbach-intl.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auerbach-intl.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auerbach-intl.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/auerbach-intl.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auerbach-intl.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auerbach-intl.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auerbach-intl.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auerbach-intl.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}