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ОUR CRAZY LANGUAGE
By Richard Lederer
English is the most widely used language in the history of our planet. One in every
seven human beings can speak it. More than half of the world’s books and three quarters
of international mail are in English. Of all languages, English has the largest vocabulary -
perhaps as many as two million words and one of the noblest bodies of literature.
Nonetheless, let’s face it: English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant,
neither pine nor apple in pineapple and no ham in a hamburger. English muffins weren’t
invented in England, or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candy, while sweetbreads,
which aren’t sweet, are meat.
We take English for granted. But when exploring its paradoxes, we find that
quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, public bathrooms have no baths and a
guinea pig is not a pig or from Guinea.
And why is it that a writer writes, but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce,
humdingers don’t hum and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, shouldn’t
the plural of booth be beeth? One goose, two geese - so one moose, two meese? One
index, two indices - one Kleenex, two Kleenices?
Doesn’t it seem loopy that you can make amends but not just one amend, that we
comb through the annals of history, but not just one annal? If you have a bunch of odds
and ends and you get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
If the teacher taught, why isn’t it true that the preacher praught? If a horsehair mat is
made from the hair 73of horses and a camel’s-hair coat from the hair of camels, from what is
a mohair coat made? If you wrote a letter, perhaps you also bote your tongue?
Sometimes I wonder if all English speakers should be committed to an asylum for
the verbally insane. In what other language can we ask: Why do we drive on a parkway
and park in a driveway? Or recite at a play and play at a recital?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Ship by truck and
send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise
guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and quite
a few are alike? How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell the next?
Did you ever notice that we can talk about certain things only when they are absent?
Have you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful gown, met a sung hero or experienced
requited love? Have you ever run into someone who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or
peccable? And where are the people who are spring chickens or who would hurt a fly? I
meet individuals who can cut the mustard, and whom I would touch with a ten -foot pole,
but I cannot talk about them in English.
You have to marv el at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can
simultaneously bum up and bum down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in
which your alarm clock goes off by going on.
English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity and
fearful asymmetry of the human race (which, of course, isn’t really a race at all). That’s
why when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.
And why when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it.
 Переведите текст, обращая внимание на географические названия:

PLACE-NAMES
We do not know when men began to give names to the places where they lived, and
to the seas, rivers, lakes and mountains around them.
From the names of places, we are often able to tell who the inhabitants were at some
time in the past. There are cities and towns in the Crimea and Ukraine whose names end in
“pol”: Simferopol, Sevastopol, Melitopol.
We can be sure, even without reading history books, that Greeks settled there in
ancient times and gave the places their names: “polis” means “city” in Greek.
Sometimes elements of different languages enter into the names of places. In the
name of Shakespeare’s birthplace, Stratford-on-Avon, we see four words from three
different languages. At this place, a Roman road (in Latin “strata”) crossed the Avon (in
the Welsh language the word “afon” means “a river”). The English word “ford” means a
place where we can cross a river. So the name Stratford-on-Avon means “the place where
the road crosses the river”.
From this we know that at different times, Roman, Welsh and English people lived
there.
Latin words began to be used in English place-names very long ago. The Latin word
“strata” later developed into the English word “street”. The Latin “portus” became the
English “port”, and is seen in the names of many English places: Southport, Portland,
Portsmouth.
The oldest place-names in the United States are, of course, Indian. They are mostly
names of what the people saw in nature: mountains, lakes, rivers and waterfalls. The name
of America’s greatest river, the Mississippi, is made up of two Indian words: “misi” (great)
and “sipi” (water). Like all ancient names, these Indian names were passed on from father
to son by word of mouth: they lived not on maps or in writing, but in the speech of the
people.
Europeans found the Indian names very difficult to pronounce, and they pronounced
them according to the rules of pronunciation in their own languages. But even in their
changed form, the unusual and poetic sound of these Indian words remains: Niagara,
Chicago, Kalamazoo.
The Europeans who arrived in America renamed many of the mountains, lakes and
rivers, and gave names to the new towns that they built. We can easily tell where
Europeans from different countries settled in America, by analysing the old place-names.
There are English names in the north-east and along the eastern coast, for example, New
London, Portland, New York; there are Dutch names in many districts of New York city
(Brooklyn, Harlem) and in other parts of New York State; Spanish names in Florida. There
are many French names in the southern states and along the Mississippi. The oldest names
in the west - in the states of California, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona - are Spanish.
All these names and many others are language monuments of the early days of
American history, when the first Europeans arrived in the new world.
 LISTENING, SPEAKING, READING, AND THEN WRITING - THE
FUNDAMENTAL ORDER IN LANGUAGE LEARNING
By Eugene Nida
The scientifically valid procedure in language learning involves listening first, to be
followed by speaking. Then comes reading, and finally the writing of the language. This is
just the order in which a child learns his mother tongue - first hearing, then speaking; and
only after he has acquired considerable facility in understanding and speaking does he
learn to read and write.
Our primary trouble is that we have tackled the study of language from the wrong
end. We are like the man who thinks he can learn to swim merely by reading books about
swimming. In actuality, we learn by doing. The grammatical rules are valuable as we
plunge into the language and need some assistance. In the same way, advanced
instructions about swimming are helpful as we learn something from actual experience in
the water. But reading books never makes a swimmer and learning rules never makes a
practical linguist.
By setting up listening, speaking, reading and writing in this order, we don’t imply
that one must be able to understand everything before beginning to speak. Certainly the
child doesn’t understand everything he hears before he begins to use the limited
vocabulary which he has acquired. However, by emphasizing the primary importance of
listening, we clearly indicate that learning to speak is dependent upon hearing someone
else speak, not upon reading orally on the bases of certain rules of pronunciation. When
we hear words and expressions from a native speaker, we should of course imitate just as
closely as possible, so that speaking follows immediately upon listening. Reading may
begin rather soon if one is studying a language such as Spanish or German where the
orthography rather consistently represents the meaningful distinctions in sound; but if the
language is French or English, then reading traditionally spelled words is a great
disadvantage at first. It is better to use some so-called “phonetic alphabet” first until one
has mastered several hundred phrases. Only then should one read the traditional
orthography...
 WORD FOR WORD
In English a simple word can have many meanings. Here we examine the word
head. You might be surprised by some of its meanings.
HEAD, that part of the body which contains the mouth, some sense organs and the
brain.
The dictionary seems to know where the head is. But are you sure you know where
yours is? For example, have you buried your head in the sand? If you have, you are trying
not to see something unpleasant. On the other hand, is your head in the clouds? If so, you
probably won’t see anything anyway. You are too busy with your own thoughts - until you
fall into practical difficulties. It is always important to keep your head above water, even
when life is difficult or you don’t have enough money.
You ’re hard headed? Then you won’t lose your money or get yourself into trouble
because you’re much too sensible to take risks that you don’t understand. We hope you
don’t know anybody who is off his head. If you do, you should take him to the doctor
immediately because he is mad, dangerous or at least very over-excited. When something
comes to a head, there is usually a crisis. Then you need to keep your head. But if you
panic or lose your head, try to calm down quickly and you will probably find it again.
Did you understand all the expressions in this article? Did you guess all the
meanings correctly and hit the nail on the head every time? If you couldn’t make head or
tail of them, don’t get discouraged and practice.