Humor Post #65 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

Question: Why do so many people have trouble reading?
Answer: Because English is messed up, that’s why. If it made more sense, people wouldn’t get so mixed up.

Here’s a total screw-up I figured out all on my own. Just by thinking, you know. And I’m just a kid. So there must be gajillions of other things I haven’t even noticed yet.

We’re working on prefixes in English class and there’s a bunch of them that mean “no” or “opposite of.” Like -un, -im, -in, -non, and -dis. I think you know pretty much what I’m talking about. Our teacher says knowing these prefixes will help us on those standardized tests they give us all the time. But I had to ask about -dis in class last week and my teacher couldn’t really answer me. So I’ll ask you.

-DIS — Like disrespect is the opposite of respect, like dislike means to not like, like dishonest means not honest. Easy, huh?

But I thought of a couple that make NO SENSE! Now how are we supposed to do gooder in school if English is such a wreck. (And yes, that was supposed to be funny. Epic fail, huh? So what’s new?)

Here they are:
The wind is gusting.
The wind is disgusting.
Huh? I don’t think the second sentence means the opposite of the first.

Or how about this?
She’s stressed.
She’s distressed.
Huh? again. This time both sentences mean the same thing. Here –dis is a prefix that means absolutely nothing. Must be there for decoration, I guess.

Like I said, I asked about these in class, but my teacher didn’t have a good answer for me. At least she seemed interested and said she’d look it up. I’m not sure anyone else noticed because most people weren’t paying much attention. That’s because prefixes aren’t the most exciting thing for most people. More people listened to me at the beginning of the lesson when I tried to be my usual brilliant self. The teacher asked someone to give a sentence that used disperse. So I raised my hand and said, “Dis purse is made of leather so it costs a lot.” At least I got a few groans and the teacher gave one of her “Oh, please” looks so I guess that counts as a success.

So anyway, getting back to the “disgusting” and “distressing” examples from above, it takes Dr. Crankenfuss once again to point out why American kids have such a hard time in school. It’s not our fault. It’s English’s fault. Why don’t they fix it? One of these days, they’ll hire you-know-who to fix the world and everyone’ll have it a lot easier.

But till then, keep checking her for beautiful pearls of wisdom from Dr. Crankenfuss,
The Dude with the ‘Tude