Why is English so confusing? - Arika Okrent?

English is like a toy box that got mixed up by a bunch of friends, words changed places and rules were forgotten or made up.

Imagine you have a favorite toy, let's say a red ball. You always call it "ball." But then someone else comes in and says, "That’s a sphere!" Now the same toy has two names, one simple, one fancy. That’s what happens with English: words can mean different things or be used in new ways.

English also has rules, like when you add "ed" to make past tense. But sometimes it doesn’t work that way. For example, "walk" becomes "walked," but "run" becomes "ran." It’s like if you had a rule for drawing lines on paper, and then one day the line just bent instead of staying straight, no explanation, just suddenly different.

That’s why English can feel confusing, it's full of surprises, like a game where sometimes the rules change without warning. English is like a toy box that got mixed up by a bunch of friends, words changed places and rules were forgotten or made up.