Miklos
« Je donne mon avis non comme bon mais comme mien. » — Michel de Montaigne

Click to enlarge.

“A true friend is a treasure which no power, how formidable soever, can be sufficient to wrest from the happy possessor. […] There can be no real friendship which is not founded upon virtuous principles, nor any acquisition, virtue alone excepted, preferable to a true friend.” (Cicero, Lælius, or, An Essay on Friendship).

A true friend is indeed the rarest of all treasures, he is at one’s side when needed even without being asked to, while false friends, a much more common occurrence (thereby reflecting the usual dichotomy between quality and quantity), often make use of the most uplifting words in order to state their undying friendship yet are sorely missed even when called for as they have more pressing occupations. The cornerstone of friendship isn’t words, as Shakespeare expressed it so well: “Let deeds express / What’s like to be their words” (Coriolanus).

Speaking of words, “false friends”, in linguistics, refer to similarly looking or sounding pair of words in two distinct languages but which have different meanings. This expression was originally coined in French as faux amis, in the title of a book published in 1928 and listing many such misleading similarities (as they abound here too…), qualified as “treasons” in the subtitle of the first edition of the book.

A couple of simple examples are actuellement (meaning “currently”, rather than “actually”) and éventuellement (“possibily”, rather than “eventually”), or librairie (“book store”, rather than “library”). The illustration above is yet another instance, where “He has ideas above his station” was literally translated into French, where “station” means “a stopping place” (like a bus or train station) as in English, but definitely not a person’s social place or position.

In its section about friendship, The Student and Traveler‘s Guide to French Conversation consisting of Familiar Phrases and Dialogues […] (click on image for full title), whose fifth edition was published in London in 1839, contains a few amusing translations which would definitely be a faux pas in today’s French:

• “A warm friend” is translated as “Un ami chaud”, which means a (sexually) hot friend.

• “We are on friendly terms” is translated as “Nous vivons en amis” (which means “We live [together] as friends”).

• “He professes for me a particular friendship” is translated as “Il me témoigne une amitié particulière”, which (as of Peyrefitte’s 1943 novel, Les amitiés particulières), denotes the “love that dare(d) not speak its name”, i.e. love between two men. Besides, one would say “Il me témoigne d’une amitié particulière”

Here is the full section on friendship (the italics in the French section are meant to denote letters which aren’t pronounced, and the little sign connecting two words means that the last consonnant sound of the first one must merge with the first vowel sound of the second one):

And for the sake of completeness, here is the following section (here too, some of the translations might raise an eyebrow, like “Il ennuie à la mort”):

Hommes au phone – Homophones

Dimanche 3/5/2020

Une fois le quorum (50 % de Françoises) atteint, Michel a raconté comment il s’est rendu compte que la fameuse lettre de la marquise de Sévigné, si vibrante d’actualité qu’elle circule partout sur l’internet depuis deux ou trois jours, n’était pas de la plume de Marie de Rabutin-Chantal : il l’avait recherchée, à la date qu’elle indiquait pour sa rédaction, dans les volumineuses archives de la correspondance de la fameuse épistolière, en vain. Il s’avère donc que c’est un pastiche. Mais de quand date-t-il ? Il a montré aux trinquants une publication de cette même lettre datant du 30 avril 2003 (c’était en plein épidémie de SRAS), leur conseillant de lire le commentaire qui la suit. On ne peut que constater que toute « information » sur l’internet peut être faci­lement manipulée, transformée, voire inventée. Françoise (C.) a parlé de photos de gens faisant la queue devant un supermarché : selon l’angle de la prise de vue, on peut penser qu’ils sont collés les uns aux autres, alors qu’ils sont en fait à bonne distance les uns des autres.

Françoise (P.) avait choisi de parler de la langue dans les opéras. Par le passé, il était commun de traduire le livret d’opéras composés à l’étranger pour une production locale. Même si cette pratique existe encore dans certaines salles, il est bien plus commun de les produire dans leur langue d’origine, tout en projetant la traduction en surtitre ou sur des écrans latéraux (voire sur des petits écrans individuels), ce qui permet aux spectateurs de comprendre ce qui se chante. Les sur­ti­trages (ou leurs alternatives) sont aussi souvent projetés même quand le livret est écrit dans la langue locale, du fait de la difficulté de comprendre la diction de certains solistes (locaux ou étrangers…). Or le changement de langue de performance n’est pas neutre, toute langue ayant sa « musique » particulière : le même air ne rend pas de la même façon selon la langue dans laquelle il est chanté. Françoise l’a illustré par deux extraits de la plus que célèbre Habanera de l’opéra Carmen, l’une en allemand par Emmy Destinn (soprano tchèque, 1878-1930), l’autre en russe par Maria Maksakova (mezzo-soprano russe, 1902-1974), combinés de façon à ce que les cantatrices alternent les phrases. À ce propos, Michel a raconté avoir chanté en hébreu dans l’opéra comique H.M.S. Pinafore de Gilbert et Sullivan alors qu’il était au lycée, et dans Down in the Valley de Kurt Weill alors qu’il était au Technion (tous deux écrits à l’origine en anglais). Françoise (P.) ayant dit qu’à Bayreuth les opéras – tous de Wagner – étaient produits sans aucun surtitrage, Françoise (C.) a raconté qu’à l’English National Opera (à Londres) toutes ses productions – que ce soit Mozart, Verdi ou Strauss – sont en anglais quelle que soit l’origine de l’opéra. Elle a ajouté avoir entendu un Barbier de Séville chanté en russe à Saint-Petersbourg.

Sylvie a enchaîné en exprimant d’abord son étonnement que, lors de la présentation de Jean-Philippe de la veille concernant l’origine des langues, aucune mention n’ait été faite d’André Leroi-Gourhan (1911-1986) et de son ouvrage Le geste et la parole (1967). Il semblerait que « les modernes » ne le mentionnent pas [quoi qu’on trouve, par exemple en 1995, des critiques intéressantes de son approche]. Selon lui, le langage commence par les pieds – en fait, par la station verticale qui le distingue des animaux – , mais aussi de la descente du larynx [ce qui semble contesté aujourd’hui, cf. cet article] et du développement de la zone de Broca dans le cerveau humain. Michel est étonné par cette approche : les grands singes ont aussi la capacité de se tenir debout, les perroquets peuvent reproduire convenablement la parole humaine sans avoir les caractéristiques anatomiques suscitées. Enfin, l’acquisition du langage ne peut se faire que dans la plus tendre enfance, comme le démontre l’incapacité des « enfants sauvages » à (ré)apprendre à parler une fois rentrant dans la société humaine. Selon Sylvie, le singe peut se redresser mais n’a pas de posture verticale, et quant aux enfants sauvages, ils ont acquis le langage, une capacité à s’exprimer, très rapidement [ce qui est contredit par cet article]. Jean-Philippe a alors dit que ce qu’il avait présenté hier visait à montrer l’intérêt de la démarche de Chomsky et d’autres était d’aborder de façon transdisciplinaire la question du langage humain. Ensuite, le développement de l’intelligence arti­ficielle permet bien mieux de comprendre le langage. Selon Michel, les traductions automatiques échouent face à des textes complexes et riches (littéraires, par exemple), alors que les humains capables de faire de la traductions simultanée, chapeau !

Jean-Philippe propose alors un jeu linguistique, tiré de l’ouvrage Les liaisons généreuses. L’apport du français à la langue anglaise de Thora van Male : trouver l’origine française (disparue) d’un mot anglais : Atourner (assigner en justice).attorney, Fouaille (bois de chauffage).fuel, Bouteiller (officier servant de haut niveau dans la cour du roi, chargé de l’intendance du vin).butler, Mousseron (champignon comestible appartenant à la famille des Agarics).mushroom.

Michel a montré une brève liste d’homo­phones en français (voir ci-contre). Par exemple, au – aux – aulx – eau – eaux – oh – ho – ô – haut – hauts, ou encore chair – chairs – chaire – chaires – cher – chers – chère – chères – cheire – cheires (ces deux dernières dénotant dans le Massif central une coulée de laves scoriacées). Mais il a aussi montré un cas d’homophonie entre deux langues : le mot en hébreu affiché au milieu, signifiant « chance, probabilité », se prononce (comme Sylvie a pu nous le faire entendre)… « sikouy », que l’on épelle différemment en français, comme le fait si brillamment le poète Germain Nouveau (1851-1920) in Ignorant.

Sur ce, après avoir levé le coude, on leva la séance.

Le délicieux poème qu’on va lire ci-dessous (et que l’on peut écouter dans une jolie interprétation de ce drôle de Dranem) circule dans les journaux et les magazines depuis la fin du XIX^e siècle. Attribué en général à Alphonse Allais, un contributeur de l’Intermédiaire des chercheurs et curieux du 10/2/1898 indique l’avoir entendu chanter par Paul Bonjour en 1849, quelques années avant la naissance d’Alphonse Allais, et donne son titre comme Les Confessions d’un gram­mai­rien. Ailleurs, on trouve plutôt Déclaration d’amour d’un gram­mai­rien à M^lle M. M…

    Oui, dès l’instant que je vous vis
Beauté farouche vous me plûtes.
    De l’amour qu’en vos yeux je pris
Sur le champ vous vous aperçutes !
    Mais de quel air froid vous reçutes
Tous les soins que je vous rendis !
    Combien de soupirs je perdis !
De quelle cruauté vous fûtes !
    Et quel profond dédain vous eûtes
Pour les vœux que je vous offris !
    En vain je priai, je gémis,
Dans votre dureté vous sûtes
    Mépriser tout ce que je fis,
Même un jour je vous écrivis
    Un billet tendre que vous lûtes,
Et je ne sais comment vous pûtes
    Voir de sang froid ce que j’y mis.
Ah ! fallait-il que je vous visse
    Fallait-il que vous me plussiez
Qu’ingénument je vous le disse,
    Qu’avec orgueil vous vous tussiez !
Fallait-il que je vous suivisse
    Pour que vous me condamnassiez,
Et qu’à vos genoux je me misse
    Pour que de mes pleurs vous rissiez !
Et qu’à vos pieds je soupirasse
    Pour que vous me repoussassiez !
Fallait-il que je vous aimasse,
    Que vous me désespérassiez,
Et qu’en vain je m’opiniâtrasse,
    Qu’à vos pieds je me prosternasse
Et que je vous idolâtrasse
    Pour que vous m’assassinassiez !

Une recette pour faire la cour, 21.12.1805.
Cliquer pour agrandir.

Pilules pour la potence.

Un multiple (quatre exemplaires) spam reçu ce jour s’intitule : « Votre choix naturel. Les meilleures pilules pour la potence! ». D’évidence, il ne peut que s’agir d’un calmant avant une exécution capitale, comme on peut le voir ci-dessus.

Par pure curiosité, on en a tout de même vérifié le contenu (des courriels, voyons !, pas des pilules). Il s’avère alors que ces pilules sont plutôt destinées En contrant l’impotence, d’où cette amusante confusion. En français, « potence » n’est pas l’antonyme d’« impotence »…à faciliter la petite mort (non, il ne s’agit pas ici de la Web-série éponyme).

On se dit que l’auteur de ce spam (en provenance de Russie) aurait sans doute préféré qu’on remplaçat la potence dans l’illustration par… heu… non, arrêtons là, Facebook censurerait le résultat, même s’il n’est que purement médical.

Here’s an excerpt from the opening chapter in Richard Lederer’s Crazy English: the Ultimate Joy Ride Through Our Language, Pocket Books, 1989 (source). If you see this floating around the Net unattributed, please suggest to the webmaster of that site that the material be properly cited.

Part I

English is the most widely spoken language in the history of our planet, used in some way by at least one out of every seven human beings around the globe. Half of the world’s books are written in English, and the majority of international telephone calls are made in English. English is the language of over sixty percent of the world’s radio programs. More than seventy percent of international mail is written and addressed in English, and eighty percent of all computer text is stored in English. English has acquired the largest vocabulary of all the world’s languages, perhaps as many as two million words, and has generated one of the noblest bodies of literature in the annals of the human race.

Nonetheless, it is now time to face the fact that English is a crazy language – the most lunatic and loopy and wifty and wiggy of all languages. In the crazy English language, the blackbird hen is brown, blackboards can be green or blue, and blackberries are green and then red before they are ripe. Even if blackberries were really black and blueberries really blue, what are strawberries, cranberries, elderberries, huckleberries, raspberries, and gooseberries supposed to look like?

To add to this insanity there is no butter in buttermilk, no egg in eggplant, no grape in grapefruit, no bread in shortbread, neither worms nor wood in wormwood, neither mush nor room in mushroom, neither pine nor apple in pineapple, neither peas nor nuts in peanuts, and no ham in a hamburger. (In fact, if somebody invented a sandwich consisting of a ham patty in a bun, we would have a hard time finding a name for it.)

To make matters worse, English muffins weren’t invented in England, french fries in France, or Danish pastries in Denmark. And we discover even more culinary madness in the relevations that sweetmeat is made from fruit, while sweetbread, which isn’t sweet, is made from meat.

In this unreliable English tongue, greyhounds aren’t always grey (or gray); panda bears and koala bears aren’t bears (they’re marsupials); a woodchuck is a groundhog, which is not a hog; a horned toad is a lizard; glowworms are fireflies, but fireflies are not flies (they’re beetles); ladybugs and lightning bugs are also beetles (and to propogate, a significant proportion of ladybugs must be male); a guinea pig is neither a pig nor from Guinea (it’s a South American rodent); and a titmouse is neither mammal nor mammaried.

Language is like the air we breathe. It’s invisible, inescapable, indispensable, and we take it for granted. But, when we take the time to step back and listen to the sounds that escape from the holes in people’s faces and to explore the paradoxes and vagaries of English, we find that hot dogs can be cold, darkrooms can be lit, homework can be done in school, nightmares can take place in broad daylight while morning sickness and daydreaming can take place at night, tomboys are girls and midwives can be men, hours – especially happy hours and rush hours – often last longer than sixty minutes, quick- sand works very slowly, boxing rings are square, silverware and glasses can be made of plastic and tablecloths of paper, most telephones are dialed by being punched (or pushed?), and most bathrooms don’t have any baths in them. In fact, a dog can go to the bathroom under a tree – no bath, no room; it’s still going to the bathroom. And doesn’t it seem a little bizarre that we go to the bathroom in order to go to the bathroom?

Why is it that a woman can man a station but as man can’t woman one, that a man can father a movement but a woman can’t mother one, and that a king rules a kingdom but a queen doesn’t rule a queendom? How did all those Renaissance men reproduce when there don’t seem to have been any Renaissance women?

A writer is someone who writes, and a stinger is something that stings. But fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce, haberdashers don’t haberdash, hammers don’t ham, and humdingers don’t humding.

If the plural of tooth is teeth, shouldn’t the plural of booth be beeth? One goose, two geese – so one moose, two meese? One index, two indices – one Kleenex, two Kleenices? If people ring a bell today and rang a bell yesterday, why don’t we say that they flang a ball? If they wrote a letter, perhaps they also bote their tongue. If the teacher taught, why isn’t it also true that the preacher praught? Why is it that the sun shone yesterday while I shined my shoes, that I treaded water and then trod on the beach, and that I flew out to see a World Series game in which my favorite player flied out?

If we conceive a conception and receive at a reception, why don’t we grieve a greption and believe a beleption? If a horsehair mat is made from the hair of horses and a camel’s hair brush from the hair of camels, from what is a mohair coat made? If adults commit adultery, do infants commit infantry? If olive oil is made from olives, what do they make baby oil from? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? (And I’m beginning to worry about those authoritarians.)

And if pro and con are opposites, is congress the opposite of progress?

Part II

Sometimes you have to believe that all English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what other language do people drive in a parkway and park in a driveway? In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? In what other language do privates eat in the general mess and generals eat in the private mess? In what other language do people ship by truck and send cargo by ship? In what other language can your nose run and your feet smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same and a bad licking and a good licking be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? How can sharp speech and blunt speech be the same and quite a lot and quite a few the same, while overlook and oversee are opposites? How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell the next? How can the expressions « What’s going on? » and « What’s coming off? » mean exactly the same thing?!?

If button and unbutton and tie and untie are opposites, why are loosen and unloosen and ravel and unravel he same? If bad is the opposite of good, hard the opposite of soft, and up the opposite of down, why are badly and goodly, hardly and softy, and upright and downright not opposing pairs? If harmless actions are the opposite of harmful nonactions, why are shameful and shameless behavior the same and pricey objects less expensive than priceless ones.

If appropriate and inappropriate remarks and passable and impassable mountain trails are opposites, why are flammable and inflammable materials, heritable and inheritable property, and passive and impassive people the same and valuable objects less treasured than invaluable ones? If uplift is the same as lift up, why are upset and set up opposite in meaning? Why are pertinent and impertinent, canny and uncanny, and famous and infamous neither opposites nor the same? How can raise and raze and reckless and wreckless be opposites when each pair contains the same sound?

Why is it that when the sun or the moon or the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible; that when I clip a coupon from a newspaper I separate it, but when I clip a coupon to a newspaper, I fasten it; and that when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I shall end it?

English is a crazy language.

How can expressions like « I’m mad about my flat, » « No football coaches allowed, » « I’ll come by in the morning and knock you up, » and « Keep your pecker up » convey such different messages in two countries that purport to speak the same English?

How can it be easier to assent than to dissent but harder to ascend than to descend? Why it is that a man with hair on his head has more hair than a man with hairs on his head; that if you decide to be bad forever, you choose to be bad for good; and that if you choose to wear only your left shoe, then your left one is right and your right one is left? Right?

Part III

Has it ever struck you that we English users are constantly standing meaning on its head? Let’s look at a number of familiar English words and phrases that turn out to mean the opposite or something very different from what we think they mean:

I could care less. I couldn’t care less is the clearer, more accurate version. Why do so many people delete the negative from this statement? Because they are afraid that the n’t . . . less combination will make a double negative, which is a no-no.

I really miss not seeing you. Whenever people say this to me, I feel like responding, « All right, I’ll leave! » Here speakers throw in a gratuitous negative, not, even though I really miss seeing you is what they want to say.

The movie kept me literally glued to my seat. The chances of our buttocks being literally epoxied to a seat are about as small as the chances of our literally rolling in the aisles while watching a funny movie or literally drowning in tears while watching a sad one. We actually mean The movie kept me figuratively glued to my seat – but who needs figuratively, anyway?

A non-stop flight. Never get on one of these. You’ll never get down.

A near miss. A near miss is, in reality a collision. A close call is actually a near hit.

My idea fell between the cracks. If something fell between the cracks, didn’t it land smack on the planks or the concrete? Shouldn’t that be my idea fell into the cracks [or between the boards]?

I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth. Let the word go out to the four corners of the earth that ever since Columbus we have known that the earth doesn’t have any ends.

A hot water heater. Who heats hot water?

A hot cup of coffee. Here again the English language gets us in hot water. Who cares if the cup is hot? Surely we mean a cup of hot coffee.

Doughnut holes. Aren’t those little treats really doughnut balls ? The holes are what’s left in the original doughnut. (And if a candy cane is shaped like a cane, why isn’t a doughnut shaped like a nut?)

I want to have my cake and eat it too. Shouldn’t this timeworn cliché be I want to eat my cake and have it too? Isn’t the logical sequence that one hopes to eat the cake and then still possess it?

A one-night stand. So who’s standing? Similarly, to sleep with someone.

The first century B.C. These hundred years occurred much longer ago than people imagined. What we call the first century B.C. was, in fact the last century B.C.

Daylight saving time. Not a single second of daylight is saved by this ploy.

The announcement was made by a nameless official. Just about everyone has a name, even officials. Surely what is meant is The announcement was made by an unnamed official.

Preplan, preboard, preheat, and prerecord. Aren’t people who do this simply planning, boarding, heating, and recording? Who needs the pre-tentious prefix?

Put on your shoes and socks. This is an exceedingly difficult maneuver. Most of us put on our socks first, then our shoes.

A hit-and-run play. If you know your baseball, you know that the sequence constitutes a run-and-hit play.

The bus goes back and forth between the terminal and the airport. Again we find mass confusion about the order of events. You have to go forth before you can go back.

I got caught in one of the biggest traffic bottlenecks of the year. The bigger the bottleneck, the more freely the contents of the bottle flow through it. To be true to the metaphor, we should say, I got caught in one of the smallest traffic bottlenecks of the year.

Underwater and Underground. Things that we claim are underwater and underground are obviously surrounded by, not under the water and ground.

I lucked out. To luck out sounds as if you’re out of luck. Don’t you mean I lucked in?

Because we speakers and writers of English seem to have our heads screwed on backwards, we constantly misperceive our bodies, often saying just the opposite of what we mean:

Watch your head. I keep seeing this sign on low doorways, but I haven’t figured out how to follow the instructions. Trying to watch your head is like trying to bite your teeth.

They’re head over heels in love. That’s nice, but all of us do almost everything head over heels . If we are trying to create an image of people doing cartwheels and somersaults, why don’t we say, They’re heels over head in love?

Put your best foot forward. Now let’s see. . . . We have a good foot and a better foot – but we don’t have a third – and best – foot. It’s our better foot we want to put forward. This grammar atrocity is akin to May the best team win. Usually there are only two teams in the contest.

Keep a stiff upper lip. When we are disappointed or afraid, which lip do we try to control? The lower lip, of course, is the one we are trying to keep from quivering.

I’m speaking tongue in cheek. So how can anyone understand you?

They do things behind my back. You want they should do things in front of your back?

They did it ass backwards. What’s wrong with that? We do everything ass backwards.

Part IV

English is weird.

In the rigid expressions that wear tonal grooves in the record of our language, beck can appear only with call, cranny with nook, hue with cry, main with might, fettle only with fine, aback with taken, caboodle with kit, and spic and span only with each other. Why must all shrifts be short, all lucre filthy, all bystanders innocent, and all bedfellows strange? I’m convinced that some shrifts are lengthy and that some lucre is squeaky clean, and I’ve certainly met guilty bystanders and perfectly normal bedfellows.

Why is it that only swoops are fell? Sure, the verbivorous William Shakespeare invented the expression « one fell swoop, » but why can’t strokes, swings, acts, and the like also be fell? Why are we allowed to vent our spleens but never our kidneys or livers? Why must it be only our minds that are boggled and never our eyes or our hearts? Why can’t eyes and jars be ajar, as well as doors? Why must aspersions always be cast and never hurled or lobbed?

Doesn’t it seem just a little wifty that we can make amends but never just one amend; that no matter how carefully we comb through the annals of history, we can never discover just one annal; that we can never pull a shenanigan, be in a doldrum, eat an egg Benedict, or get a jitter, a willy, a delirium tremen, or a heebie-jeebie; and that, sifting through the wreckage of a disaster, we can never find just one smithereen?

Indeed, this whole business of plurals that don’t have matching singulars reminds me to ask this burning question, one that has puzzled scholars for decades: If you have a bunch of odds and ends and you get rid of or sell off all but one of them, what do you call that doohickey with which you’re left?

What do you make of the fact that we can talk about certain things and ideas only when they are absent? Once they appear, our blessed English doesn’t allow us to describe them. Have you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful gown? Have you ever run into someone who was combobulated, sheveled, gruntled, chalant, plussed, ruly, gainly, maculate, pecunious, or peccable? Have you ever met a sung hero or experienced requited love? I know people who are no spring chickens, but where, pray tell, are the people who are spring chickens? Where are the people who actually would hurt a fly? All the time I meet people who are great shakes, who can cut the mustard, who can fight City Hall, who are my cup of tea, and whom I would touch with a ten-foot pole, but I can’t talk about them in English – and that is a laughing matter.

If the truth be told, all languages are a little crazy. As Walt Whitman might proclaim, they contradict themselves. That’s because language is invented, not discovered, by boys and girls and men and women, not computers. As such, language reflects the creative and fearful asymmetry of the human race, which, of course, isn’t really a race at all. That’s why six, seven, eight, and nine change to sixty, seventy, eighty, and ninety, but two, three, four, and five do not become twoty, threety, fourty, and fivety. That’s why first degree murder is more serious than third degree murder but a third degree burn is more serious than a first degree burn. That’s why we can turn lights off and on but not out and in. That’s why we wear a pair of pants but, except on ery cold days, not a pair of shirts. That’s why we can open up the floor, climb the walls, raise the roof, pick up the house, and bring down the house.

In his essay « The Awful German Language, » Mark Twain spoofs the confusion engendered by German gender by translating literally from a conversation in a German Sunday school book: « Gretchen. Wilhelm, where is the turnip? Wilhelm. She has gone to the kitchen. Gretchen. Where is the accomplished and beautiful English maiden? Wilhelm. It has gone to the opera. » Twain continues: « A tree is male, its buds are female, its leaves are neuter; horses are sexless, dogs are male, cats are female – tomcats included. »

Still, you have to marvel at the unique lunacy of the English language, in which your house can simultaneously burn up and burn down, in which you fill in a form by filling out a form, in which you add up a column of figures by adding them down, in which your alarm clock goes off by going on, in which you are inoculated for measles by being inoculated against measles, and in which you first chop a tree down – and then you chop it up.

Richard Lederer, Crazy English: the Ultimate Joy Ride Through Our Language. Pocket Books, 1989.