15 Aug English Doesn’t Make Sense! … Or Does It?

Welcome to the crazy world of the English language

Written by Neza Skorc

4 min read

As a native from a tiny little country that’s younger than I am (before your mind wonders – I’m not that old, my country is that young), I can hardly remember a time when English wasn’t an essential part of my education and life. From university books that were never translated to my native tongue, to knowing that there’s no way I could ever live the life I wanted without knowing one of the most widely spread languages in the world: there was no ‘to learn or not to learn’ proper English type of a dilemma I had to go through.

My 8 English Language Quandaries

However, my relationship with the English has recently taken more of a bitter-sweet turn. While I continue feeling comfortable in my usage of the language, I am becoming more and more painfully aware that there are nuances and peculiarities that I will never come to master or even fully comprehend. For some reason they elude me completely. Creating (from my perspective, at least) some sort of magical kingdom/pub of oddities where only select native speakers – and those who live surrounded by them and are truly interested in knowing everything there is about English – get to hang out and be cool in their usage of the language.

I recently made a list of those English language oddities that drive me crazy the most or make me giggle every time I see them. Full disclosure – I’m in no way a language professional and this is a completely subjective selection of my absolute favourites. But boy, are they strange!

#1. Queue

Fun story – when I was in high school, I took French and absolutely hated it. Day after day I was left flabbergasted by the fact that I had to spend all that effort in writing soooo many letters and pronouncing half of them or less. English seemed like the dreamland in light of that. Enter, ‘queue’. Words cannot explain the betrayal I felt and continue feeling to this day by having to write four letters and pronouncing only one.

#2. Pronunciation

Us, members of any of the Southern Slavic nations, love the fact that the Serbian language has a wonderful little guideline that says ‘Piši kao što govoriš, čitaj kako je napisano’ (roughly translated as ‘Write as you speak, read as it’s written’). And it’s a breeze reading it (if you can read Cyrillic, that is). But not English – oh no! It became painfully obvious to me I need to brush up on my pronunciation after failing miserably at trying to read out this poem. Can you get through it without hesitation and doubt?

#3. Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

After reading the title above you’d think my cat ran over my keyboard several times. And while I appreciate you giving my cat credit to consistently type out the same word, this is actually a proper sentence in the English language. No joke. You see, ‘buffalo’ is one of those fun words that has several different meanings. So, here’s a challenge for you – what’s the message of the sentence?

#4. I’m glad I’m a man, and so is Lola

While the sentence is grammatically correct, is Lola a man? Is Lola glad I’m a man? Which one is it?? Causing confusion among the grammar enthusiasts since 1970, I give you ‘Lola’ by The Kinks.

#5. You’re / Your

As Joanne Adams’ book title cheekily states, Grammar: Know Your S**T or Know You’re S**T. I always much prefer to stay on the ‘knowing my s**t’ end of things and wouldn’t wish the alternative for the vast majority of humanity. What better way to make this one’s usage really in-your-face obvious? (Notice the ‘your’!)

#6. One Word to Make All the Difference

Let’s take this simple sentence: She told him that she loved him. Now place the word ‘only’ anywhere you want in the sentence. You’re suddenly left with no less than seven different situations thanks to one simple word. Seriously English, I’m not sure whether I should swoon over your versatility, or feel VERY confused.

#7. Unsure Whether They’re Good or Bad

I already gave an example of a word having different meanings, but this is too good not to mention on its own. There are words – contranyms – that have two completely opposite meanings. Don’t believe me? Here you go:

– Dust
– Nonplussed
– Hysterical

This type of words caused more than one head-scratching moment for me in the past, and continue to do so today – the more I try to use them correctly or at least context-appropriate, the more I laugh in confusion thinking about all that can go wrong if not understood as intended.

#8. Oxford Comma

This actually merits a blog post on its own (which we’ve already taken care of), but sentences such as ‘I dedicate this to my parents, Ayn Rand and God’ make me giggle every time. It took me a minute to fully comprehend the point of the Oxford Comma, but I can’t seem to structure my sentences without it now. Perhaps out of fear that there’s another person like me out there, laughing at the unintended double meanings my lack of Oxford Comma might produce?

So, there you have it – my very own list of English language peculiarities favourites.

What do you think? Is there any particular one missing? Or one that you feel we should to discuss more? Drop us a line, so we can compare notes – and update this list of English language oddities together.

About the Author: Neza Skorc is CavaCom’s office manager extraordinaire, who doesn’t like to keep all her eggs in one basket – which led her to work in many different areas over the past decade. From account and office management to working as a virtual assistant, project manager, data analyst and proofreader. A multilingual word nerd, she also chips in with the occasional blog post. She proudly confesses to being a literature junkie.