"if waiters wait and bankers bank, why don't hammers ham? stephen pinker asks this question along with numerous other questions in his interesting and enlightening book "the stuff of thought", which focuses on the bizarre quirks of language and its interaction with human conception. he also wonders why we abbreviate things but end up making them longer (it's longer to say 'www' than 'world wide web'); why the f-bomb is considered obscene, but the word 'rape', with its vile definition, is not; and how the tautological phrase 'enough is enough' actually says anything worthwhile. the reader will be quite familiar with the bizarre quirks in the english language that pinker brings up and they will certainly come to the same conclusion that there may be rhyme, but no reason."
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