Learning the English language is no picnic — I have evidence to back up that claim

I was reading the life story of musician Graham Nash the other day and in one place it talked about his start with The Hollies, a British band of some renown. One of their big hits, “Bus Stop,” featured the phrase “ ... waiting in a queue.”

First of all, the word phrase drives me crazy because it is pronounced with an “f” in place of the “ph.”

But worst of all is the queue. It is pronounced simply, “Q.” What the heck are the other four letters doing in there? They are completely useless, not even to mention they repeat themselves. They are as unused as the Pips were to Gladys Knight, who also did not use the K in her name.

No wonder people have so much trouble learning English as a second language. It’s no picnic for anyone, as picnic makes its “c” into a “k.” But that’s another gripe for another time, like all the uses of silent “e.”

I can still remember that as a child learning to read I thought for a long time the word “island” was pronounced “is land.” Otherwise what was the “s” in there for? So much to learn.

Queue is from the old French, (I knew somehow the French would be in this messy word situation) and meant “a tail.” It moved to 16th Century England as “the tail of a beast.” It was used as a metaphor for a line of dancers and gradually came to mean a line of people, according to the website Online Etymology.

Oddly enough, the website says the word looked up incorrectly most frequently when people are searching for queue is cue, pronounced “q” so it sounds the same but only wastes a couple of letters. Coup, pronounced “koo” figures in there also.

Even if you managed to eliminate the last “ue” of queue, it would become que, which is pronounced “k” in Spanish and means what. By the way, what also wastes its “h.”

So it goes. Luckily we avoid some confusion by not living in Quebec which is a total pronunciation mess. Again, thank the French.

I don’t know who to blame for choir, a group of singers. The word turns ch into q. I don’t know, or “no”, how it acquired that spelling.

It would be wrong, which doesn’t use its “w” to worry about all the words that start with “wr” which don’t use the “w.” Or at least you would be all wrought out. Wreally.

And just thinking about the “P” words, like pseudo, pneumonia, psalm and psychic makes me itchy, like I had psoriasis.

There are many more examples which I haven’t mentioned, maybe because I was out having a problem aligning a line.

You, too? Well, get in the queue.