.... you are quite correct, our language is an "art" not a science--it does
not obey laws of logic or consistency, like math does... we only speak it
for historical reasons... grin

Warmest regards,
John

"Percival P. Cassidy" wrote in message
...
On 03/21/05 09:17 pm Richard Clark tossed the following ingredients into
the ever-growing pot of cybersoup:

If it wasn't for us war mongering yanks y'all would be speaking
German.

If it weren't for the Brits, we would all be speaking Dutch. Or
French. Or Spanish.

At least Dutch has consistent spelling and pronunciation: once you know
the rules, you know how to pronounce anything you see. Not like English,
which has no rules at all: think of "cough," "rough," "through,"
"although," etc.

Perce van de Cassidy