Tripping over the English tongue.

• Author: Kreyche, Gerald F.

The story is told of a person knocking at the Pearly Gates. St, Peter asks who is there, and the answer comes, "It is I." "Go to Hell," replies Peter. "We have enough English teachers up here already!"

Compared to Greek, Latin, and Japanese, English is relatively easy to learn, although its vocabulary is extensive and increasing daily as computerese has pushed its way into daily living. English has become the lingua franca of our time and is the universal language for science and technology. Yet, we all tend to murder it, both in writing and speaking. Here are a few examples.

It is easy to get mixed up on prefixes and suffixes, as the rules of grammar are inconsistent. As much as we hear the word, irregardless, it is not a legitimate one. To allow it would be to negate what is intended. The old rule still holds true that "two negatives make a positive." Regardless is the proper term.

For years, gasoline trucks carried the warning: inflammable. Many thought that flammable was its opposite, as inconsistent is the opposite of consistent. Not so! Flammable means exactly the same as inflammable, and the warning signs have dropped the prefix "in," eliminating at least one piece of confusion. Similarly, reiterate means the same as iterate, and inhabitable and habitable are synonymous. However, invaluable increases the worth of being valuable, to the point of being priceless.

Language is like clothes, said one philosopher. It can reveal or conceal. Let's say your daughter is taking piano lessons and you want to know if you are spending your money wisely. You ask the teacher, who replies, "She certainly is not without a lack of talent." What would you do -- continue lessons or quit? After deciphering the negative, you should discontinue her lessons as the statement maintains she has no talent.

Word order is a major problem to one studying German, where verbs often appear at the end of extended sentences. People joke that, if the last page of a German whodunit were torn out, the reader never would know who was the murderer. The shorter sentences in English are less subject to this dilemma, but one still can flounder. For example, a cub reporter wrote a headline: "Woman Shot in Rear at 1667 Fulton St." (Now there's a tender spot.) Or consider this sentence from a high school student: "While standing on his hind legs, the master petted the dog." (Two four-legged creatures, one must presume.) Then there is the man who asked ungrammatically, "Do you love...