Dear Old Aunt Gussy

I know I'm not the first to think of this, but the English language is a complete pain sometimes.

I also know that there are others out there who can probably discuss this better than me, but here goes...

I am fascinated by words and phrases in our language because, well, I use it sooooo much.  I like words.  They can be fun. Sometimes, I like to just starting pounding words out and see where they take me, much like, right now.

Sometimes, I liken writing to traveling down back roads.  I might use a phrase like "I'm headed into the sunset" and suddenly wonder where that phrase came from. It's simple enough and isn't too mysterious, but, why does it exist?  These old phrases are like the small town I just drove through that hasn't seen a lot of traffic since the interstate came around.   Why is this town here?  Was it a watering hole for trains or horses at one point?  What is this towns history?  Is it simply a stopping point on the way to the sunset?  Come to think of it, until just now, I've never used the phrase "headed off into the sunset."

Sometimes, I'll think about the dirt roads that became these highways, what made them so popular?  Which when compared to words, is the basic development of the language I speak.

Now I've tried researching this next part, but I couldn't find much regarding what I was looking for so, I'm going mostly from memory here and I hope it's close to accurate:

First off, Mesopotamia magically appeared and the people instantly knew Semitic.  I guess this split off into your Arabic, Latin and Indo European dialects which then went "hog wild;" such a fun phrase describing how something is like some piggies playing in the mud. Awww look at 'em.  They're so cute.

Anyway, there were these guys in the Indo European split who really liked to dress in black and have Emo hair and look all unimpressed and they invented the "Goth" language.  Eventually they got all organized after being picked on by Russel Crowe and his dog (who I only remember seeing in that one scene) and decided to speak Germanic.  I'm sure they got short haircuts and put on Hugo Boss suits while organizing. 

Then you had your separate Germanic dialects of which the Western Germanics went all Anglo-Frisian on their comrades (ooops, wrong language) and then voila (did it again), ENGLISH!  The Frisians were on there own; yes, very sad.

That is a mess of evolution to get to one convoluted language.  Oh yeah, and then we started stealing from other languages too, comrades. 

We have 26 letters in our alphabet? Why?  Why do we have K and S when C can do the same job?  Get rid of either C or K and S.  It would be less confusing to get rid of C, but you diehards out there would be worried about a word like "choice."  K and S can be replaced just fine by C.  So Choose! For that matter, what the hell do we need X for?  I am already confused and I haven't even gotten to my "f "and "gh" issue....  All these multi-purpose/ criss-crossed letters are like two dirt roads that intersected in 1807.  Now they've become two interstates intersecting, creating maybe 47 lanes headed in "God only knows" how many directions and we now call that original intersection Houston!

Deep... soothing... breaths....

Essentially the English language somehow utilizes too many letters for the sounds we wish to make.  It is very confusing.  And then we have all the words we make with them to deal with.  Whose bright idea was to, two and too?  For that matter whose bright idea was "who's?"  It's nuts.  The Germanics screwed us!  Why couldn't we have stuck with the Latin languages and have genders for our words? 

NO!  That would NOT make us all Latino.... ughhhh

My Dad once said to me, "Spell Fish."
So I spelled it staring at him as if he was losing it.  "F-I-S-H."
Then he said "spell it the other way."
"What way"
And then he went insane and said "G-H-O-T-I."
"Poor Dad," I thought.  "Being in those submarines has finally made him crack."

But before I was able to call the straight jacket people to come get him, he commenced to explain it to me.  Don't worry, I won't do that to you.  I am just going to give you this link that I found whilst typing this blog.  Until I found this moments ago, I seriously thought Dad was nuts, even though his reasoning was sound.

Of all the languages I've ever spoken (and forgotten), I know English the best, yet I mess it up all the time and it confuses me the most. 

And, as is so easy for me to do what with all the words availble to me, I have gotten off of my original point.  I must've taken a wrong turn down a dirt road.

I'm curious about where the phrases come from. 

For example, I'm guessing that somewhere down the road there was an Aunt Gussy who liked to dress up real fancy-like from time to time.  When anyone else in the family opted to dress like her, they were gettin "all Gussied up."

Sadly, Gussie had a husband whose family gave him a very vulgar nickname that rhymes with Chuck.  He had a drinking problem and whenever anyone in the family had too much to drink they were referred to as being "(not Chuck)-ed Up!"  Very sad.

Some words were created with bad intentions.  But, still fun!