Read 'Til You Drop

What does English have that other languages don't have?

I'm not a linguist, but offhand -- English has really rich linguistic options for talking about food. For example, we have different words for cow vs. beef, and different words for beef vs. veal, and different words for hamburger vs. steak, and so on.

We also have about a zillion different ways to say "intoxicated."

As I discovered while explaining the various types of precipitation to a newcomer from California and why what was happening that day didn't qualify as "sleet," in the Midwest, we have a thousand words for rain AND snow.

I don't know if you'd call them a bug or a feature, but the English modal verbs are a thing of wonder (as someone once said, looked at one way, English has only two verb tenses -- present and past -- but looked at another way, it has something like thirty-odd): We can distinguish between "He left at noon" and "He had left at noon" and "He should have left at noon (but he didn't)" and "He ought to have left at noon (but I'm not sure that he did)" and "He may have left at noon (but I don't know for certain)" and "He might have left at noon (or he might have stayed around for lunch)" and "He could have left at noon (he certainly had the opportunity)" and so forth and so on. I'm told the modal verb system drives non-native speakers of the language nuts, and I can well believe it.

variations on Color is another one. We differentiate between magenta, fuschia, hot pink, neon pink, dusky rose, mauve . . .

Di

Interesting about the Navajo language.

In Mandarin, we distinguish between whether the sister/brother is maternal/paternal and whether the sibling is older or younger than your parent as well. Not to mention the eldest and the youngest are separate as well.

Can't think of anything though.

English has amazing powers of expansion. We add and create new words all the time, in part to help distinguish shades of meaning. Whereas French has like 200,000 words, English has almost 3 times that many. It's a language not afraid to evolve.

We'll steal, stretch or invent words to cover new things we discover/invent/learn about. We continue to come up with additional ways to describe things (like the multiple ways we can say things like crazy, money, sex, etc.) We have more endearments than most languages (many Asian languages just don't have much in the way of sweetheart, honey, darling, etc.). The language changes and adapts rapidly. After looking through the OED (Oxford English Dictionary), I think many/most words (except for man, house, dog, etc.) have gone through radical changes of meaning over the years. I think that is what makes English a trade language, and also makes it somewhat difficult to learn at times. It doesn't nail down well in terms of rules.

I'm Sooooo *Not* a linguist, but fascinated by the language.

Also, regarding relationship words -- Nepali distinguishes between your older brother (dhai) and younger brother (bhai), and between your older sister (didi) and younger (bahini), but not between your siblings and your cousins.

I found that fascinating.

Let's face it -- English is a crazy language. 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 blouse, 2 blice?

Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend, that you comb through annals of history but not a single annal? 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? If you wrote a letter, perhaps you bote your tongue?

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? Park on driveways and drive on parkways?

How can a "slim chance" and a "fat chance" be the same, while a "wise man" and "wise guy" are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while "quite a lot" and "quite a few" are alike? How can the weather be "hot as hell" one day and "cold as hell" another?

Have you noticed that we talk about certain things only when they are absent? Have you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful gown? Met a sung hero or experienced requited love? Have you ever run into someone who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable? And where are all those people who are spring chickens or who would actually hurt a fly?

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 clock goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race (which, of course, isn't a race at all). That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible. And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it?

Now I know why I flunked my English. It's not my fault, the silly language doesn't quite know whether it's coming or going.

Different languages developed and spoken in the same country (China, India) are still considered different languages, but even though different "English-speaking" countries use completely different words for the same thing (pavement / sidewalk, French fries / chips) or the same word for different things (pavement = paving material vs. pavement = paved footpath) or have incorporated aboriginal words or non-native-language words in their country that no other "English speaking" country uses, it's still considered the same language.

I like English's adaptability when making words for new things; we just grab bits and pieces of Latin and Greek and hook 'em together succinctly. German sticks German words for definition of the new thing together into one "new" very long word. And French linguists will twist their language into a pretzel just to make sure that the word for the new thing isn't anything like it is in any other language (especially English).

After "taking" Spanish I and II with #2-Son, I am especially grateful for English having dropped / lost the "gender" from nouns and their accompanying articles, verbs, etc. And it makes life easier that the pronouns-of-respect have disappeared except from some religious areas, too.

Oh, that differentiation between the word for the food and the word for the animal it came from? Thank the snotty Normans who wouldn't be caught dead using the language of the people whose island they thought they must have.

Camera Obscura (http://homepage.mac.com/baroose/iblog/index.html)