16. English A Crazy Language

English is the most widely used language in the history of our 1) ____. One in every seven human beings can speak it. More than half of the world’s books and three 2) ____ of international mail are in English. Of all languages, English has the largest vocabulary---perhaps as two million words---and one of the noblest bodies of literature.

Nonetheless, let’s face it. English is a 3) ____ language. There is no egg in eggplant, neither pine or applein pineapple and no ham in a hamburger. English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candy, while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat.

Sometimes I 4) _____ if all English speakers should be sent to a madhouse. In what other language do people drive on a parkway and park in a 5) _____? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a 6)_____ chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise guy and a wise man are opposites? How can overlook and oversee are 7) _____, while quite a lot and 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 glorious messiness 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 your alarm clock goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it 8) ____ the 9) _____ of the human race, which, of course, isn’t a race at all. That is why when stars are out they are visible, but when the lights are out they are 10)___. And why, when I wind up my watch I start it, but when I wind up this speech I end it.

Notes:

Muffin: small, flat, sweet bread roll that you eat hot with butter （松饼）

Marvel: give an expression of a great surprise, wonder, or admiration（对…..感到惊讶）