What the Heck?

American English Oddities

I was writing something totally unrelated this morning, when I came across an interesting American English language oddity. I closed the unfinished post and opened a new one. I decided to share what had occurred to me. But then it took on a life of its own and I thought of more … a lot more.

Why is it, I can have one mouse and if you give me another one, I will then have two mice? No problem, (except I don’t want a mouse, let alone two).

But here’s the oddity. I live in a house. If I had a second one, a sweet little beach bungalow for instance, why is the plural of house, houses and not hice? We could stretch it one further: I love my spouse, but if I had another, I would have two spouses, not spice, although I suppose having two would be rather … um … spicy …

Whose bright idea was it to pluralize that way?

Okay, we also have words that are spelled very closely. These words all end with ‘o-u-g-h’. However, there’s absolutely no guarantee that words ending with the same spelling will share a similar pronunciation:

Cough, furlough, bough, rough, though, breakthrough, borough, although, sourdough, and through.

Okay, Got it. Now here’s another ridiculous American English oddity. This happens to be my favorite of the weird ones: Why is it that writers write and painters paint, but fingers don’t fing? Why don’t grocers groce, or hammers ham, or elders eld, or dumpsters dumpst? Weird, huh?

If the past tense of complete is completed, then why isn’t the past tense of go, goed?

Does that make any sense at all?

Where did our crazy American English language rules come from? Is it any wonder foreigners might have a hard time learning our language?

While we’re at it, let’s complicate things a little further … I decided to see if there were any new words added to the dictionary lately. WOW! How about 690! Wait! Six hundred and ninety? These are words that were made up, but used so much by the masses, they’ve become actual words and recently added to the dictionary.

No, I’m not going to list 690 here, just a few:

Twerk (a shake-the-buttocks dance).
Noob (a beginner, or novice).
Glamping (combination of glamour and camping).
Selfie (a self photo taken with a smart phone).
Rizz (a person’s charm or charisma).
Adorbs (something adorable).

And, thanks to The Sopranos, we also have …

Fuhgeddaboudit …

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