English Proves Difficult to Learn

While I am currently in a waiting mode with my first-graders as far as National Poetry Month goes, I have spent considerable time pondering the English language. Maybe too much.

When was the last time you thought about it? Exactly how much ice is in your ice cream? There are certainly no grapes in my grape jelly. All ladybugs are not ladies. If you drown in quicksand, as I understand, it's really a slow process. Fireflies aren't made of fire and butterflies aren't made of butter.

Take the word wet, for example. If you fall in a creek, out of a boat or into a pool, you will get wet, plain and simple. But if you're a newbie at, say, anything, then you're wet behind the ears. I had a friend once who liked to whet his appetite with a glass of wine. Spelled different, pronounced the same.

Earlier today, I spent a short amount of time sharpening my knife. I used my whetstone, of course. No worries, though, since my whetstone wasn't wet.

Here's something frightening. Sweetmeat, it turns out, is the culinary name for testicles. Sorry, but that's true. Sweetmeat, however, is not sweet. Nor is it considered to be meat. Hmm... Go figure.

I share my home with my wife, my son and three fuzzy, black dogs. I fixed hot dogs for dinner several days back. One dropped, and was eaten by dog. Lucky dog, or cannibal? Of course, the three dogs dogged me the entire time I was in the kitchen cooking. By the end of that day, I was dead dog tired.

It's no wonder the English language is one of the hardest languages to learn. An exchange student at my high school once told me that English is crazy and makes no sense!

Nonsense! His statement incensed me. Since then, I have had the good sense to use the English language to try and make some cents of my own.