English is a Crazy Language: Analysed

A friend of mine shared this tidbit of irony recently, that, upon reading it, I felt the intense urge to discover the idiosyncrasy behind all this madness and set forth to do some research on the etymology of the words mentioned below:

English is a crazy language
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple, English muffins weren't invented in England. Quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a Guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

Any why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

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 fililng it out, and in which an alarm goes off by going on. And, in closing, if Father is Pop, how come Mother's not Mop?

English is crazy, because it adopts a whole array of words from other languages... a little research reveals this much.

• Eggplant originates from India and is natively known as brinjal.
• Hamburgers originates from Hamburg, Germany. The original hamburg steak originated from this location, which ironically was derived from Ham "bend of the (river) knee (originating from that of a hog" + Burg "fort" in German. In conclusion, the hamburger was in reference to the place than the type of meat used, but the smarter lot of you would already know that...
• Pineapples were named after resemblance to pine cones.
• English muffins indeed originated from England.
• Quicksand implies "quick" as in "lively" instead of "fast" in this context.
• Boxing ring originates from a crowd making space for two individuals in a fight.
• Guinea pigs were plausibly sold as cheap pork alternatives via the Guinea trade route.
• Finger originates from "fingor", Hammer from "hamor", Grocer was a family name, hence all having a different root to words with the use of "-er".
• Amends is the plural form of "Amende", adopted from Old French, and does not originate from "Amend".
• Teach originates from Old English, where Preach was borrowed from Old French; definitely of different roots.
• Vegetarian originates from agrarian "relating to the land" whereas Humanitarian came from Unitarian "one who rejects the doctrine of the Trinity".
• Recite can actually be done at a Recital, and Play has a homonym from two origins "plegian" and "plega" in Old English.
• It is possible to "ship cargo by ship", and "ship" is analogous to conveyance of large quantities of goods over a long distance, before motorised vehicles were invented.
• The nose doesn't actually run, it's the mucus that does. "Feet smells" being a shortened way of describing "smells like vinegar".
• Old houses had long driveways that could be driven on, and parkways came from USA for cutting roads through national parks.
• Fat chance is used in a sarcastic tone whereas a slim chance is an analytical point of view.
• Similarly, a wise guy is used sarcastically as opposed to a wise man.
• Burn up is shortened from "burn up in flames", whereas during the process, the house burns down "to the ground", so both happens at the same time with reference to observations on either the fire or the object engulfed in the flames.
• A person can "fill in the blanks" (shortened to Fill In) on a form, and part of this process is to "fill out" required information (opposed to optional ones)
• Go Off originates from firearms in which the ammunition departs from the chamber and barrel, hence derived from a process of explosion and loud sound. Go On simply means that something had occurred, different from the original meaning of "On", which implies operation of the alarm.
• Infants learn Papa and Mama rather than Pop, so again it's thanks to USA for introducing such deviation. Phonetically, it is evident that pronouncing "Papa" without the ending "a" will result in "Pop" being pronounced.

Obviously, whoever made the original text is American. From a rational perspective, the differences in usage is attributed mostly to the origins of words, where many a time, the origins are not from the UK but instead borrowed from other languages. Other times, a slang used regionally gets perpetuated across the world and maintains usage as a figure of speech. Anyone remembers New Holland? No? That's because it's been geographically renamed to Australia. And does anyone know where Persia is? Iran. Yet the old name has remained in pop-culture reference, just because people like how it sounds.

I reckon there are many a loopholes in the above that you wish to point out, but it should certainly stir some deep thinking regardless. Way to go for taking the fun out of all that gibberish eh? My welcome.

Sources:  www.etymonline.com, en.wiktionary.org, en.wikipedia.org, dictionary.reference.com, answers.yahoo.com and various other locations from searching on www.google.com, such as this blog and this forum.