LACK OF CLARITY IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

I've often wondered about the word 'procrastination' I wondered if there was an anticrastination. After all, if you are 'pro' something, you should be able to be 'anti' the same thing. The dictionary lists suggestions for words when it can't find the one for which you are hunting. The first suggestion Merriam-Webster gave was constipation. I thought that was very rational of those dictionary people.

Words can be so much fun. For example, there's sewer and sewer. What, might you ask is the difference? Well Betsy Ross was one and the other is a mass of pipes carrying doo-doo away. Now how would someone new to our language figure that out? Newspapers are even more difficult for strangers to English. I remember a journalist saying that the soldier yelled, "Drop your arms and raise your hands" That might seen very difficult to do!

Headlines make great use of the language with two meanings as in: 'Patient At Death's Door--Doctors Pull Him Through'.

Humor is based on using language literally. Rodney Dangerfield used to say, simply, "Take my wife...please!" People are so frequently apologetic so repeatedly as to make it most annoying. It is as though they can never take responsibility for anything they have done. They try to get out of responsibility by saying, "I'm really trying!" a prompt answer most usually is, "Yes, you are....VERY!"

Very confusing are missed punctuation marks. An early sentence to illustrate this used to be: 'The cow fell in the hole on her back' suggestion of implosion rather than , 'The cow fell in the hole, on her back.'

People play with matching sounds: "He believed Caesar could see people seizing the seas."

We also have words whose definitions are both synonyms and antonyms: cleave (adhere and separate); cover (conceal and expose); trim (garnish and prune); sanction (censure and approve). Is there any wonder why we, as a people, have difficulty understanding one another?