Dear the English Language, a letter
Dear The English Language,
You are driving me insane. I've often heard that people find you difficult to learn, and I understand why. It's only after roughly twelve years of schooling and too many years of daily practicing that I'm finally getting the hang of you. You have too many complexities and rules, too many irregular verbs and hidden catches for me to learn in a reasonable amount of time.
When spoken, you sound rough and harsh, an angry chef at the chopping board. You don't flow, your words don't string together like a beaded bracelet. You can be manipulated with the tone of voice, a statement made into a question with a tone inflection, a grammar cheat.
Plus, you can't make up your mind how to be spelled. Is it "mom" or "mum"? "Tire" or "tyre", "colour" or "color", "gray" or "grey", "neighbor" or "neighbour"? Please, please decide. I've just about given up on you. My writing is a smattering of mistakes to different people, rights that are wrongs and wrongs that are rights. I'm tipping towards making up my own version of you, just to keep sane. Mom, tire, colour, gray, neighbour.
You have too many faces. You have an endless array of accents and slang words, all mixing together. Each accent will give away someone's history. It makes it impossible to blend in.
But... there's something about you. Perhaps its the endless manipulation, how people make you their own. Maybe it's the mixing of ancient languages, the swirling culture in each sentence. Maybe it's your endless rules in search of perfection. Maybe it's because you are the language I know best, the language that I can use to shape my stories. I don't know what exactly it is, but I think I could possibly, maybe, impossibly, be in love with you.
Sincerely,
Victoria
You are driving me insane. I've often heard that people find you difficult to learn, and I understand why. It's only after roughly twelve years of schooling and too many years of daily practicing that I'm finally getting the hang of you. You have too many complexities and rules, too many irregular verbs and hidden catches for me to learn in a reasonable amount of time.
When spoken, you sound rough and harsh, an angry chef at the chopping board. You don't flow, your words don't string together like a beaded bracelet. You can be manipulated with the tone of voice, a statement made into a question with a tone inflection, a grammar cheat.
Plus, you can't make up your mind how to be spelled. Is it "mom" or "mum"? "Tire" or "tyre", "colour" or "color", "gray" or "grey", "neighbor" or "neighbour"? Please, please decide. I've just about given up on you. My writing is a smattering of mistakes to different people, rights that are wrongs and wrongs that are rights. I'm tipping towards making up my own version of you, just to keep sane. Mom, tire, colour, gray, neighbour.
You have too many faces. You have an endless array of accents and slang words, all mixing together. Each accent will give away someone's history. It makes it impossible to blend in.
But... there's something about you. Perhaps its the endless manipulation, how people make you their own. Maybe it's the mixing of ancient languages, the swirling culture in each sentence. Maybe it's your endless rules in search of perfection. Maybe it's because you are the language I know best, the language that I can use to shape my stories. I don't know what exactly it is, but I think I could possibly, maybe, impossibly, be in love with you.
Sincerely,
Victoria
XD English can be frustrating sometimes, huh? I don't think I've ever quite experienced your same kind of anger because we're pretty much decided on how we want to spell things in American English, but it can be tricky to get the hang of. And, in the end, we still love it, and that's the best part!
ReplyDeleteYeah, it drives me insane more often than I'd like to admit. I think we as English speakers need to have a meeting and just decide on a few things, but somehow I doubt that's going to happen. And yeah, I think as long as you still love it at the end of the day it's all good.
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