Saturday 4 October 2008

Good old English

I heard the following on BBC R4 PM

English should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.

In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?
  • We ship by truck but send cargo by ship.
  • We have noses that run and feet that smell.
  • We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.
And 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.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Partly it's the BBC's fault - they confuse English with American. For example, "Ship by truck" is American - the English version would be "deliver by lorry". Sad really; BBC Radio was once a bastion of good spoken English - these days there are times when subtitles would be useful!