Language Fails Me

Words are slippery things in the English language.  I have a friend who was in the Navy being a linguist.  Since he had a better understanding of languages, he always said, “English is the best language in the world.”  Personally, I disagree.

I disagree on many points.  The fact is, I cannot say many things without some string of adjectives in front of it to define what the heck it is I’m trying to say.  I think that’s pretty dumb.  I can’t tell someone I love them as a friend, without tacking on a bunch of stuff, because if I don’t tack on that crap, then suddenly I’m in love and my entire marriage is in jeopardy.



Many things are just like that.  I have friends that I consider family.  Yet if I call them my family things get a bit awkward, and if I call them my friends, it doesn’t do our relationship justice.

Everyone seems to want to complain about how everyone is trying to shorten the English language, because they can’t fit it into 140 characters.  I can understand that to a degree, but English is already the laziest language I’ve attempted to learn.  Contractions, taking away the words in between stuff, stealing words from other languages....

I think the must infuriating bit is where we put the adjectives.  In Spanish, for instance, the words are formed like this: The Cat is Big, Black, and Fluffy.  But in English, its: Big, Black, Fluffy Cat.  Bam, we’ve gotten rid of The and Is and And.  But at what cost.  The adjectives are not as important as the Cat itself.  Personally, I’ve wondered for years, if this particular thing is why people in the country are so f’n racist.

Think about it.  When I see my friend, whom happens to be black, I see him as a man first.  But if most people describe him, he’s a ‘black man.’  Black comes first, making it more important....  Its something to think about for sure....

All this mess, all this maneuvering words around, makes English a tricky language.  Its easy to be misheard, or misunderstood.  I’ve gotten myself in a bind, many a time, because of how all the superlative crap comes before the main point, so people focus on the superlative crap....

I guess one could argue about the poetic nature of the English language...but then I hear French being spoke and shake my head.  The English language sounds clunky, there’s far too many rules for it to be such a damn lazy language, I mean seriously, people with degrees in English hardly ever use the language correctly....

I guess what I’m trying to say is....  I love my wife.  And I just wish I could say it better, because she has no clue how much I love her, or how vast my soul yearns for her in my life.  But I’ll never be able to say it good enough, because there’s no way it will fit into 140 characters....