I often hear complaints about people moving to America and not learning to speak English. While it would be nice if all Americans spoke the same language, that’s a task that is easier said than done — have you ever thought about just how insane the English language is?

At the Tribune alone we have a process for trying to make sure everything we print is correct. It literally takes a team of experts to convey a message correctly in this language. First the article is written in rough draft and proofread by the author, then it goes to me and I check it over for errors. Then it hits Sandy’s desk and she finds many more errors, then Tessa, Ilene, Toby and Dave all mark more changes as well. Then it hits my desk again. Then the changes get typed in and Tessa and I re-check the changes.

That’s eight times.

Every article is, ideally, proofread eight times before our readers see it — and still someone finds a mistake somewhere after it prints.

Why is that? Aside from every keystroke bringing the possibility for error, it’s also because English is tricky.

I speak three languages (English, Spanish and American Sign Language) and of the three, English is the hardest to rationalize.

Although I’m losing my ability to speak it fluently due to lack of use, I still actually prefer Spanish, since it conveys a message more rapidly and with less room for errors or misinterpretation. American Sign Language doesn’t really follow the same rules as English for both simplicity’s sake and because it’s more closely related to French since that’s where the first deaf language was developed.

For instance, in English the phrase “the black cat is sleeping” has the words in a completely nonsensical order of importance. Nobody cares what color the subject is; they want to know the subject first.

In Spanish, it’s “el gato negro es duerme,” which in English would literally be “the male cat, who is black, is sleeping.” 

Of course, Spanish is far from perfect since the difference between father (papá) and potato (papa) is minuscule and easily confused when written or when spoken out-loud with a cold or under the influence of coffee, beer or just a mouthful of bubble gum.

So back to my main point, English is difficult to learn and use because it just doesn’t make sense.

We drive on parkways, but we park on driveways.

I need to know where to buy some ware that I can wear.

The plural of goose is geese, but the plural of moose is not meese.

The difference one comma makes can turn Thanksgiving dinner into cannibalism. Example: “Let’s eat Grandma,” vs. “Let’s eat, Grandma.”

I’m sure you all know of many more examples like this, and to make matters worse for the non-native English speaker, the language often adopts words from other languages and invents entirely new ones along the way.

“Cookie” is actually a Dutch word, derived from “koekie,” a sweet biscuit.

“Tycoon” is actually a Japanese word, which loosely translated means “high commander.”

“Shampoo,” “thug,” “loot,” “punch” and “sorbet” are all words taken from the Hindi language. I bet you didn’t know you were speaking mostly Hindi when retelling your friends about how you punched a thug while looting sorbet and shampoo.

There is one word I wish English would adopt — my favorite word, “kummerspeck” (pronounced coo-mer-speck). It’s a German word that loosely translated means “grief bacon” to describe the weight someone gains from emotionally over-eating.

English is just an insane and eclectic language, so I sympathize with those struggling to learn it — after all, I’ve spoken it my entire life, graduated with honors with a degree in it from one of the top literary universities in the world ... and I still ain’t able to English good.

So to end this neat little package about an irrationally confusing language, I’ll end with an aspect of English I really don’t understand, poetry. I hate poetry, but it is National Poetry Month and there is a poem with an anonymous author that is a prime example of just how insane the English language is and why it is so difficult to learn.

The King’s English

I take it you already know

Of tough and bough and cough and dough?

Others may stumble, but not you,

On hiccough, thorough, slough and through.

Beware of heard, a dreadful word,

That looks like beard but sounds like bird.

And dead: It’s said like bed, not bead —

For goodness’ sake, don’t call it deed!

Watch out for meat and great and threat…

They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.

A moth is not the moth in mother,

Nor both in bother, nor broth in brother.

And here is not a match for there,

Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,

And then there’s dose and rose and lose —

Just look them up — and goose and choose.

And cork and work and card and ward,

And font and front and word and sword.

And do and go, then thwart and cart,

Come, come, I’ve hardly made a start!

A dreadful language? Why, sakes alive!

I’d learned to speak it when I was five.

And yet, to write it, the more I tried,

I hadn’t learned it at fifty-five.