ANDY ROONEY

©2003 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

Ours And The King’s

One of many reasons I’m pleased to be an American is, I’d hate to be a foreigner and have to learn the English language.

It’s so complex. I’ve been making notes:

- Last night, the news anchorman paused for a commercial and said, "We’ll be right back."

What a strange use of the word "right," I thought, missing the whole commercial as I considered some of the many meanings the word "right" has. There must be 20. "You’re right," meaning correct. "Take a right." "He hit him with a right." "It’s a right angle." "You have a right." "He’s right wing." "That’s not right to do." "It doesn’t fit you right." "The canoe tipped over and he righted it."

How would you teach anyone all those meanings?

- "A slip of the tongue." Slip? What’s a tongue got to do with slipping? Isn’t a slip underwear? "Slip and fall?" "She’s a slip of a girl." "Put the boat in the slip." And consider:

- Censor, censure.

- Council, counsel.

- Complement, compliment.

- Affect, effect.

- Proscribe, prescribe.

- Why does someone "go to THE hospital" but "go to prison" without the "THE"?

- "I’m afraid we can’t go tonight." What do you mean you’re "afraid"? What are you afraid of?

- And why do we spell "EMBARRASS" with two r’s and two s’s when we spell "HARASS" with just one r but two s’s ?

- If you live in Chicago, you say, "IlliNOY." Many others call it "Illinoise." Same with Colorado. Natives call it "ColaRADo." I say, "ColaRODo." Sounds better.

- "Till" is not a contraction of "until." It’s a word all by itself. People who spell it "‘til" don’t know that.

- Is "gray" a darker color than "grey"? Why do we spell it two ways?

- We say, "I could of hurt myself," but if we wrote it, we’d know it should be, "I could HAVE hurt myself."

- High school English teachers are still insisting on "dived" instead of "dove" and "hanged" instead of "hung." They’re fighting a losing battle.

- We still accept "mankind," but it’s politically incorrect to call a woman "chairman." I don’t like just "chair" and "chairperson" doesn’t have much authority. I don’t see anything wrong with a woman being chairman.

- "OK" has been one of the most useful American additions to the Eng-lish language. It’s old and no one knows its derivation. There are at least 20 theories.

- I don’t understand the punctuation of "Rock ‘n’ Roll." (Of course, I don’t understand Rock ‘n’ Roll, either.)

- You don’t hear people say "PDQ" much anymore.

- "Jock" and "closure" have become popular recently.

The English language has three times as many words as French be-cause we take in new words that are useful and have a different nuance of meaning than anything we already have. The stuffy French Academy doesn’t allow that. They wouldn’t have taken in "pizzazz," for example. French is pretty, though.

- When I write the sentence, "He said, ‘I love her’", I put the period outside the quotation marks. Editors always move it inside, which doesn’t make sense. The period is the end of my sentence that began, "He said..." It isn’t the end of "I love her." (sic)

How would someone trying to learn English deal with fine points like these?