From Crazy English by Richard Lederer:

     Let's face it--English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant
  nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.  English muffins
  weren't invented in England nor French fries in France.
     Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.
  We take English for granted.  But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that
  quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is
  neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.  
     And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't
  groce and hammers don't ham?  If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the
  plural of booth beeth?  One goose, two geese. So, one moose, two meese? One
  index, two indices?
     Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend, that
  you comb through annals of history but not a single annal?  If you have a
  bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call
  it?  If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?  If a vegetarian eats
  vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?  If you wrote a letter, perhaps
  you bote your tongue?
     Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an
  asylum for the verbally insane.  In what language do people recite at a play
  and play at a recital?  Ship by truck and send cargo by ship?  Have noses
  that run and feet that smell?  Park on driveways and drive on parkways?
     How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and
  a wise guy are opposites?  How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while
  quite a lot and quite a few are alike?  Have you noticed that we talk about
  certain things only when they are absent?  Have you ever seen a horseful
  carriage or a strapful gown?  Met a sung hero or experienced requited love?
  Have you ever run into someone who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly, or
  peccable?  And where are all those people who are spring chickens or who
  would actual hurt a fly?
     You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house
  can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out
  and in which an alarm goes off by going on.  English was invented by people,
  not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race (which, of
  course isn't a race at all).
     That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the
  lights are out, they are invisible. And why when I wind up my watch, I start
  it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it.