Gripin’ ’Bout Grammar—#1 in a Never-ending Series
Today, we are looking at how the English language
abuses our planet.
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| Lt. Col. Ed White, US astronaut. in orbit above the Earth. When I was a kid, this poster hung on my wall. |
English is the youngest language on Earth (and
that’s with a capital “E”—more on this in a second), and with the exception of
made-up languages like Esperanto or Ubi-Dubbi, is perhaps the craziest, most
confounding and contradictory language on Earth, as well.
Sure, Mandarin Chinese or Arabic or Basque (which
is the closet language on Earth to Martian--being of Basque heritage, I can make that joke) are very difficult to learn, with eccentricities
regarding pronunciation and so on, but nearly all non-English-as-a-first-language
speakers that I have taught have confirmed that it’s English’s multitude of
homophones and its non-standardization (its vs. it’s—but “apostrophe-s” is
usually possessive, right? This is one native speakers of English still have
trouble with) that really drive English language learners nuts.
Because it’s the youngest language on Earth, the
English language is still figuring things out.
