25+ Times People Tried to Find Logic in the English Language but Failed

We all know that feeling when we’re texting a friend and suddenly some well-known words start looking weird and unfamiliar. This phenomenon actually has nothing to do with the language itself as it happens purely in our minds. However, if we start digging deeper into the grammar of a language, we’ll be able to find lots of illogical things that really make no sense whatsoever.

Bright Side put together 30 of the wittiest observations about the English language made by Internet users that will leave you scratching your head.

• Contractions function almost identically to the full 2-word phrase, but are only appropriate in some places in a sentence. It’s one of the weird quirks of this language we’ve. @Swibblestein
• “Jail” and “prison” are synonyms, but “jailer” and “prisoner” are antonyms. @thinice41

• Your fingers have fingertips but your toes don’t have toetips, yet you can tiptoe but not tipfinger. @Suave-Matthews
• Why is a “W” called a “double-U” when it is clearly a “double-V”? @saranowitz
• Shouldn’t something awFUL be better than something aweSOME? @kanoe170

• The opposite of waterfalls would be fireflies. @reptilian-underlord
• Why does my nose run and my feet smell? @MooSaysCow

• You can drink a drink but you can’t food a food. @MundaneRiot
• Why are Zoey and Zoe pronounced the same but Joey and Joe aren’t? @Djimmieboy
• If you replace the “W” in where, what, and when with a “T” you answer the question. @Unknown

• “I never said that she stole my money” — This sentence can have 7 different meanings depending on the stressed word. @mcfluffmuffins
• Slang is just slang for “short language.” @dylandipzz
  

• The past tense of William Shakespeare would be Wouldiwas Shookspeared. @Unknown
• Tear and tier are pronounced the same, yet tear and tear are pronounced differently. @Atal15
• The word “queue” is just a Q followed by 4 silent letters. @cherlishPanda

• “Busy as a bee” is a metaphor for being unflaggingly industrious, but the job of every bee is literally to “stop and smell the roses,” — a metaphor for taking a break from work. @nabuhabu
• Is the “S” or “C” in scent silent? @Vaxtin
• “I’m going to do housework and then do homework” is a completely acceptable sentence in the English language. @Unknown

• Why does fridge have a “D” in it, but refrigerator doesn’t? @AdventurousMan
• The fact that Kansas and Arkansas are pronounced differently bothers me way more than it should. @Sherman_Beardman
• Steven: “Good evening.” Stephen: “Good ephening.” @orangepek0e

• Why isn’t 11 pronounced “onety-one”? @NotSureHowItGoes
• Guinea pigs are neither pigs nor are they from Guinea. @Mail_
• If “baked” is pronounced (baykd) then why is “naked” pronounced (nay-ked)? @ChrisScags
• “Fat chance” and “slim chance” mean the same thing. @volcanichamster

What illogical things have you noticed in the English language? Let’s exchange our discoveries in the comments!