A little madness in the spring is wholesome even for a king. -Emily Dickinson

And what could be madder than the English language?

Here’s some perfectly grammatical sentences allowed in English.

Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo.
Will Will Smith smith?
The old man the boat.
The complex houses married and single soldiers and their families.
A boat shipping boat transports shipping boats.
If it is it, it is it; if it is it, is it? It is.
All the coffee she had had had had no effect on her.

Consider the contronym. It’s a word that can mean it’s own opposite. Context is everything in this case.

Clip can mean to cut or attach.
Screen, to shield or search.
Transparent isn’t that obvious as it can also mean invisible.
Variety refers to a particular type or many types.
Weather can mean to wear away in the elements or to withstand them.
Refrain is something repeated or to stop something.
You may need to explain your sanctions. Do you approve or did you boycott?

And nobody seems to know how many more. AI says there is between 50 to 100 common contronyms.

English has a lot of idioms and they are no piece of cake. An idiom is a phrase that has no literal meaning. If English is not your first language, you could spend a lot of energy trying to make sense of phrases like these: the elephant in the room, take to the woods, fly off the handle, face the music, or raining cats and dogs. And some of them are even more complicated than they need to be. The term ‘head over heels’ seems like a perfectly normal way of uprightness, but it means…

Merriam Webster debunked the “I before E Rule” with a jingle of their own:
I before e, except after c
Or when sounded as ‘a’ as in
‘neighbor’ and ‘weigh’
Unless ‘c’ is the ‘sh’ sound
As in ‘glacier’
Or it appears in superlatives
Like ‘fancier’
Also when vowels are sounded like ‘e’
as in ‘seize’
Or as ‘i’ in ‘height’
Or ‘-ing’ inflections ending in ‘-e’
as in ‘cueing’
Compound words are excused
as in ‘albeit’
Some technical words don’t follow the norm
like ‘cuneiform’
And random words that escape the net
As ‘science’, ‘weird’ and ‘forfeit’.

It must be the exception that proves the rule.

Imagine some more difficulties if you were learning the English language. There are 566 homographs identified. That’s words that are spelled the same but have different meanings and possibly different pronunciations— but not always. Between 7% and 15% of English words are homophones. (there, their and they’re). (Homophones Visualized) The letters ‘ough’ can be said at least 11 different ways. The syllable stressed may completely alter the meaning, as in ‘TURN on’ and ‘turn ON’.

And everyone puts adjectives in a particular order whether they think about it or not. The order is: opinion, size, age, shape, color, origin, material, purpose NOUN. Any other order sounds strangely awkward. Does anyone know why?

“Her faithful, 8 by 11, old, rectangular, black and white, English, paper, journaling notebook was always near at hand.” Even that sentence sounds a little crazy.

Does anyone really understand the ‘yeah no, no yeah’ business?

English is a difficult language to learn. It can be understoon through thorough thought, though.

Think about it. Most days we manage to spell and say things correctly. We can usually understand each other. And sometimes we get a good laugh. It’s a miracle.

-Liz

“I am about to—or I am going to—die; either expression is used. —Last words of Dominique Bouhours, a grammarian.