That strange English language

Language is fun! And it reveals so much about a culture. Cultures are influenced by their language and in turn influence that very language. Certain Inuit tribes have many words for the color white, since they can distinguish various shades of the color in their environment. To other cultures, white is white.

English is a language which has a rich history, but which also has allowed itself to be richly influenced by languages and cultures which it has encountered. To some this might seem a frustration. Why do we spell some words in such a strange way? And why do we use certain ‘foreign’ words. Why not use a good English word? 

When we first came to the Netherlands a man asked: “Why do you say ‘u’ for a word with two o’s, like ‘book’. If one ‘o’ is ‘oh’, then two o’s should be ‘ooh’,” he said, making a very rounded ‘o’ sound. “In Dutch we are consistent," he continued, "If one ‘e’ sounds like ‘eh’, then two e’s is ‘ay’. You English speakers confuse everything.”

Of course, much of this is because English borrows words vigorously from any language it comes in contact with. Unlike some countries which fight to keep their language ‘pure’, English simply swallows words whole and spits them out with adapted pronunciations (as one might expect after spitting something up).

I want to have some fun looking at this wonderful language. I will regularly use a Wednesday to pass on the weird way our words warp through time and cultures.

Consider today (although it is Saturday and not Wednesday), for those many of you so looking forward to the rain (something which we typically look forward to getting away from here in Belgium and the Netherlands!), the expression: It’s raining cats and dogs. For animal-loving Dutchmen, this seems an abomination! Although, really horrible weather is called ‘hondenweer’ or ‘dog’s weather’. It is weather even a dog would not want to go out in. So it simply does not rain cats and dogs here. Here it rains ‘steel rods’ or ‘pipe rods’. This is of course only descriptive of what we see in a heavy rain, but I don’t know that I would want cats, dogs or steel rods pelting me from the sky. I would much rather a nice refreshing drenching, whether needed or not.
 

(Want more info on 'cats and dogs'? Check this out.)