Languages Make No Sense

141. In the spirit of adventurous inquiry, pose a question of your own. If your prompt is original and thoughtful, then you should have little trouble writing a great essay. Draw on your best qualities as a writer, thinker, visionary, social critic, sage, citizen of the world, or future citizen of the University of Chicago; take a little risk, and have fun. (U of Chicago)

Why are languages so odd?

Haven’t you ever wondered why things are named what they are? To the people who created them, or heard them for the first time, they must have just been gibberish. Imagine having to come up with a whole bunch of gibberish and putting it all together to make sense! Sometimes I say a word and it just doesn’t sound right, and I’ll sit wondering how it came to be known as what it’s called.

In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? We have noses that run and feet that smell! There are neither eggs in an eggplant nor ham in a hamburger. The English Language has no consistency. The masculine pronouns are he, his, and him, but could you imagine the feminine as she, shis, and shim? We find that quick sand works slowly and bowing rings are actually square!

To further that debate, if the plural of mouse is mice, then the plural of house should be hice. If d-o is pronounced as doo and t-o pronounced as too, then why isn’t g-o pronounced as goo??

The English Language has always been weird and has never made sense to me, less so to others who learn it as a second or third language. Of course, not as weird as the French who “don’t care what you say as long as you pronounce it right.” (Henry Higgins from My Fair Lady) There have still always been many things about languages at large that make no sense. Like the existence itself of oxymorons baffles me. Oxymorons should be considered as grammatically incorrect. As I said before, I never repeat myself; clearly misunderstood; exact estimate; small crowd; act naturally; found missing; and mother of all happily married; how do any of these make any sense?! They contradict each other, and though I understand that is what an oxymoron is, I do not understand the point of oxymoron’s!

Languages in general make no sense if you pick at them and separate them out. However, when it comes together, most languages make sense as a whole. I would love to have the opportunity to meet the person who first invented the idea of a language and ask him or her how they planned it.