Is English an amusing language or what?

The past tense of the verb “lead” is “led,” but the past tense of “read,” the verb, is “read,” not “red.” It’s easy to determine the pronunciation of the former, but for the latter; it depends on the context: “I’m going to read the book,” or “I read the book yesterday.”

And then there’s “read” the noun, as in “The book was a good read” (not to be confused with “reed”). As if that’s not enough, there’s “lead” the noun and “lead” the other noun, as in: “I couldn’t hold the lead in the race because my feet felt as heavy as lead.” Which means I no longer led.

It doesn’t end there. Take “head,” which is pronounced like one “lead,” but not the other “lead.” Or take “heed,” which has nothing to do with “head,” but raises questions because of “bread” and “bred,” which is the past tense of “breed” while “bread” is the past tense of nothing.

Or “great” and “grate” or “flew,” “flue” and “flu.” And is there such a thing as a fowl ball? Well, if your Rhode Island Red plays with the Red Sox, why not?

And then there’s “herd,” “bird,” “word” and “curd” (“heard” creating a category all its own, thank you). No one living or dead can explain why four different single vowels can be used for the same sound. Germans would be appalled. And what about “boarder” and “border”? “Board” and “bored”? “Hoard” and “horde”? “Hoar” and “roar”? “Hoard” and “roared”? “Soar” and “sore”? “Boar” and “bore”?

Yada-yada-yada. It’s enough to make me a neurotic nuisance, but what’s pneu? At least I won’t get pneumonia because I just had a booster shot.

And don’t get me started on “through” and “threw.” Or “throw” and “though.” Or “boy” and “boil.” Now I ask you, why not just tack an L on the end of “boy” and call it “boyl”? Nooooo. Ack. Enough already!

But you do see my point, don’t you? It’s enough to make your head spin. And where in the -gh does the F sound in “enough” come from anyway? Or in “tough” but not “dough”? Why can’t a lousy golfer who’s sick be a “dougher who soughers from the flue”? If -gh is pronounced F, why not “ghorget about it.” Well, I’d love to, wouldn’t you?

Makes you wonder by what miracle English-speakers ever master their language — not that all of us do. And think of the challenge facing immigrants who speak phonetically logical languages.

Meanwhile, today we will not talk about the difference between “color” and “colour,” “neighbor” and “neighbour” or “honor” and “honour.” Besides, there is none, the ocean that separates them notwithstanding.

Don’t get mad if I omitted your favourites. I could have gone on, I suppose, but I was afraid you’d run out of patients and dump a pale of water on my hare.

(Wink.)

On the soapbox, more or less

I’m not going to say that a fraud has been perpetrated on the American consumer, but I think a fraud might have been perpetrated on the American consumer (OK, another one).

I came to this conclusion the other day as I was doing dishes. I suppose I could have come to this conclusion years ago, but usually when I do dishes, I don’t think about doing dishes — I think about quantum mechanics or Gregorian chants. But the other day I paid attention.

Here’s what happened: I was doing the dishes as I usually do, squirting a little detergent into my sponge and working up some suds, and I noticed that I had to keep doing this more often than I remembered. I’d wash a fork or two, a knife maybe, then need a little more detergent. It was almost as if someone had watered down the dishwashing liquid.

And that’s when it hit me. You see, I always buy the old-fashioned dishwashing soap because it comes in bigger bottles, seems less expensive and isn’t labeled “Ultra” or “Concentrated.” I mean, who needs concentrated dishwashing liquid when the unconcentrated kind works just fine?

Except it doesn’t — at least not the way I remember it. Seems to me that in days gone by I could squeeze some detergent into my sponge and the suds would go on and on and on — just like the ultras do now. So is that what’s going on? Are the smaller bottles labeled “Ultra” filled with plain old laundry detergent and the bottles of plain old laundry detergent just watered down?

Part of me whispers, “That’s impossible. Surely manufacturers wouldn’t dupe the public in such a way, would they?” Another part of me says, really loud, “Don’t be so naïve!”

And when I remember the Ultra 2X laundry detergent sitting over by my washing machine, I slap my forehead and say “Silly me.” Because it’s the same thing all over again with clothes. And did I forget the concentrated bleach? BLEACH? How on earth do you concentrate bleach?

I know what you’re thinking. So what if the manufacturers of these products save a little money by using less water in their products. After all, water is precious, right? And if the bottles are smaller, they’re using less plastic. Isn’t that also a good thing? But then they’re selling what must be that watered-down version I’ve been using, so water isn’t that precious after all, is it? And putting it in the original-sized bottles, so they don’t give a hoot about plastic, do they?

Incidentally, my findings have been corroborated by an independent test kitchen in western Massachusetts, so it’s not just me.

Consumers everywhere don’t know if they’re getting a break or being taken for a ride. All I can say is this: If there had been a little more soap in my soap, I would have written about something else — maybe the incredible shrinking pound.