Words Are Funny

In honor of vacation season, today's post takes a break from talking about business, and makes time to laugh at the idiosyncracies of the English language.

• Why do we drive on parkways and park on driveways?
• Why do we send shipments in cars and cargo on ships?
• If your father's wife is your stepmother, why isn't your uncle's wife your stepaunt?
• If she corresponds to he, why don't we have shim and shis to correspond to him and his?
• If the plural of mouse is mice, why isn't hice the plural of house? How does one tell the difference between the singular and the plural of sheep? And what's the singular of trousers?
• If vulnerable and invulnerable are opposites, why do inflammable and flammable mean the same thing?
• Why doesn't overlook mean the same as oversee? And why does quite a lot mean the same as quite a few?
• If "worn-out" clothing is no longer fit to wear, shouldn't brand-new clothing be sold as "worn-in"?
• Why isn't there any egg in an eggplant, or any apple in a pineapple? Where are the rocks in rock candy? Why aren't lead pencils made with lead, and why are tin cans made mostly of steel?
• Why do dogs and people take catnaps?

Take a nap yourself this afternoon, and remember that relaxed minds make for "creativer" writing! (Why doesn't every adjective have one-word comparative and superlative forms??)