The English Language

Lately I have been contemplating the ridiculousness of the English language (which is something I find myself doing quite frequently). I recently tried to sign up for another class and was 'wait listed'. What a strange phrase. Obviously somebody got tired of saying 'put on the wait list' and decided to make up a verb for it.

At least our propensity to make up new words is better than our practice of adopting others' without changing the spelling or pronunciation to fit our system - not that we have a system. Words like buffet, quay, and rendezvous for example. It's no wonder we spend all of our grade school careers learning how to spell. Made up words like 'wait listed' are at least very straight forward in their meaning, if you know the meaning of the word or words it was built from.

Ah well. There are so many holes in the English language we need to bring in new words (or make them up) to fill in the gaps. One of my Ekins' side cousins actually lauded our language for not having a word for everything, therefore giving us the opportunity (and necessity) to lengthen our writing, reading, and speaking with wordy descriptions. I guess I can see his point, prose is often - arguably - more beautiful when the imagination is more strongly called upon. And, as you can tell I am prone to ramble and the need for description only feeds my urge to do so.

Honestly, I think the thing that really made me start this blog was a need for an outlet for my rambling. Yes, I have just called all of you an outlet, feel free to enjoy the title while it lasts, as I'm sure you will grow tired of my word stream and decide to forget this blog ever existed. You needn't worry about hurting my feelings, I'm trying not to hold any illusions about how interesting my droning may or may not be. (And if anyone says that sounds insecure, I fiercely deny any such implication.)

I'm sorry. You are all probably reading to hear about my life here in Juneau and see pretty pictures. Next post I'll try to be a little more informative and a little less rambley. (congratulations, Grandma Ekins, you have invented a new word, and I just used it, it'll be in the dictionary before we know it) Though you have hopefully noticed by now that I did name my blog The Long and Winding Road, not The Short and Direct Road. :)