I’ve written about it before, BUT: I can not get over how complicated the English language is. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. Since working here I have become very aware of the intricacy of our language in everything I say, read, and write. I’ve also become aware of my lack of surety about several phonetic and grammatical concepts. I think I understand most of the rules and concepts, but when I stop and think about it I am not always assured of my accuracy.
Yesterday I was helping a friend with a grammar assignment and I had forgotten how impossible grammar is. I was pretty confident in agreeing to help my friend and thought I would easily know the answers to the questions. My confidence was not warranted. It was hard! Even when we tried to look up each concept via Google and tried to understand the rules, we still weren’t able to definitively make a decision about the questions. The assignment was on the internet and it gave the results at the end. It was embarrassing to discover that she had done better earlier by guessing on each question than when we looked up each concept and really tried to make sense of each question. It was especially embarrassing since I work for a company which is devoted to promoting reading and literacy skills (maybe I shouldn’t be writing this blog- it is probably full of unknown grammatical errors).
I’ve been surprised by my interest in writing the last few years because I hated writing until I was in College. Even when I started enjoying it I only enjoyed the content aspect of writing, never the technical side. I started to love writing because I could share my thoughts and ideas, but I still despised grammar. I always ignored those lessons and decided I would get by without that knowledge. I should probably re-evaluate that decision now that I work and write for a company which produces a reading program.
With such a complicated language surrounding us I am so impressed by Reading Horizons reading program and its goal of providing a simple, straight-forward, and logical process for learning the fundamentals of reading. When I consider how complicated the English language is I do not know how I was able to understand and learn our language (well, the parts I actually grasped).
I received this email a few months ago and my recent thoughts inspired me to look through the trash folder in my email (always a good thing to be inspired to do), here is a portion of the email:
You think English is easy???
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.
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? 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 goes off by going on.
English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.
For more information on how to teach reading in a SIMPLE way, visit: www.ReadingHorizons.com
For more information on learning how to read in a SIMPLE way, visit: www.ReadingHorizonsAtHome.com
