Pete Seeger - English Is Cuh-ray-zee lyrics

English is the most widely spoken language
In the history of the planet
One out of every seven human beings
Can speak or read it
Half the world's books, 3
4 of the international mail are in English
It has the largest vocabulary
Perhaps two million words
And a noble body of literature but face it:
English is cuh ray-zee!

Just a few examples: There's
No egg in eggplant
No pine or apple in pineapple
Quicksand works slowly boxing
Rings are square
A writer writes, but do fingers fing?
Hammers don't ham
Grocers don't groce haberdashers
Don't haberdash english is cuh ray-zee!
If the plural of tooth is teeth
Shouldn't the plural of booth be beeth?
It's one goose, two geese why not one moose
Two meese? If it's one index, two indices
Why not one Kleenex, two Kleenices?
English is cuh ray-zee!

You can comb through the annals of history
But not just one annal
You can make amends, but not just one amend
If you have a bunch of odds and ends
And get rid of all but one
Is it an odd or an end?
If the teacher taught
Why isn't it true that a preacher praught?
If you wrote a letter
Did you also bote your tongue?
And if a vegetarian eats vegetables
What does a humanitarian eat?
English is cuh ray-zee!

Why is it that night falls but never
Breaks and day breaks but never falls?
In what other language do people drive on
The parkway and park on the driveway?
Ship by truck but send cargo by ship? Recite
At a play but play at a recital?
Have noses that run and feet that smell?
English is cuh ray-zee!

How can a slim chance and a
Fat chance be the same when a wise man and a
Wise guy are very different?
To overlook something and to oversee
Something are very different
But quite a lot and quite a few are the same
How can the weather be hot as hell one
Day and cold as hell the next?
English is cuh ray-zee!
You have to marvel at the lunacy of a
Language in which your house can burn down
While it is burning up you fill out
A form by filling it in
In which your alarm clock goes
Off by going on
If pro is the opposite of con
What is the opposite of progress?

Well, English was invented by people
Not computers
And reflects the creativity of the human race
So that's why when the stars are out
They're visible
But when the lights are out
They're invisible
When I wind up my watch I start it
But when I wind up this rap
I end it english is cuh ray-zee!