I do not really speak any other languages; well, maybe?
When they should have been working on their grammar, the Gauls were writing poetry, the Irish were singing songs, the Vikings were out whacking, and the Anglo-Saxons were playing elaborate word games. Then, these four languages were warped together to produce English. Modern English did not appear until a thousand years after the Romans left the area. The knitting together continues. English is great for poetry, songs, war, word games, and politics, as proved by President Bush. English is less well suited for concise and precise communications.
Written English is not that far away from a tradition of saying things three times; once for the locals in English, once for the lords in French, and once for the Church in Latin. Thus, English did not have to be precise. Recently, we have dropped out the French and Latin phrases, but we are only gradually learning to speak precisely with less redundancy. Our redundancy makes passages from English shorter in translation.
Think about how many meanings English has for "knit." Knit is a transitive verb, a intransitive verb, a noun, and; we are not even getting into that lousy subject of "nit." English even has words coming out of Celtic-Brythonic-Cornish tradition such as "knit" meaning lead ore. Think about how many words sound like"purl". There is also pearl and Perl. This flexibility leaves English open for word games -- even when we are not "seeking" to play word games. Suppose we are talking on the telephone, and I ask if you have used, "the Perl sock program." Nothing in English grammar or pronunciation tells you that I am talking about
SNIP
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