I’m in a strange position as an English teacher. I truly love the language in all its complexity, but I am fully aware that it is a schizophrenic language that often doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. When teaching grammar to my students, I add the following addendum to every single lesson: “Although this is a rule, there is an exception…” It doesn’t take long for one of my clever students to ask why?

For instance, while teaching about verb tense, we come across the two words lie and lay. The rule is that lie doesn’t take a direct object and means to rest or recline. Lay takes a direct object and means to place something somewhere. For example, you lie on your bed and you lay your head on your pillow. The problem arises when you change it to past tense. Then lie becomes lay. Why? I don’t know.

When you read a book, eventually you will have read it, which must not be confused with red, which is a color, or reed which is a type of grass. A rose by any other name is still a rose, unless you mean the past tense of the verb rise, which is rose. The brake on my car might break if I press too hard, which will mean it broke and paying to have it fixed will make me broke. And should you meet the queen, you will bow and probably wear a bow tie, which shouldn’t be confused with bough as in the branch of a tree or bow as in weapon.

And don’t even get me started on see. You see me, but in the past tense you saw me, which shouldn’t be confused with saw as in tool. In the past participle, you have seen me, which isn’t anything like the scene in a play, and really, thinking about it makes me want to take a trip to the sea.

But not in a boat, because if it springs a leak, I will have to bail unless I have a hay bale to plug it or a pail to fill, which all makes me feel a little pale. None of which is bail, that you’ll need if you ever go to jail. Do you hear what I’m saying here? And don’t even get me started on there. Or their. Or they’re.

Madness, this. And yet, each year I have a student who says, “Why do I need to take English? I’ve been speaking it all my life.” I smirk and say, “Each day we will spend part of our hour to learn a language that bears close study because I can’t bare your ignorance. You will need cloths, not your clothes, to wipe away the tears as you tear through the information I will provide. At the end of the course, you will realize how coarse your knowledge has been and then raise your hand in praise as you go to the principal on principle to ask that I be given a raise.”

Whew!