English Oddities

I have heard that English is one of the most difficult languages to learn. I have no trouble believing it. Even when one has learned English grammar (probably better than 90% of Americans), one is still unprepared for the American habit of shortening and condensing. "You wanna go? I'm gunnu." Wanna? Gunnu? The one I noticed today was... Argh. I forget. But it was something like "I'll puddit in here." Of course, the t on the end of "puddit" is more like a stop in sound than an actual t. Actual t's are pronounced by only a very small segment of the population. In fact, when I heard someone say waTer, I wondered why people were so impolite as to refuse to laugh at his humor. Fortunately I realized, before lifting up my voice in supportive laughter, that it wasn't supposed to be a joke. This was very much like the time I almost told a professor he had something on his forehead before I realized it was Ash Wednesday. I think my guardian angel does a lot more than protect me from physical danger. He has his hands full with keeping my faux pas number to the "keep her humble" level, as opposed to the "she is the laughingstock of the universe" level. And for those moments when even my guardian angel can't stop me, I can always pretend I haven't mastered all of the idioms of English. Ha ha, you thought I was being dumb, but actually I was being really really smart in a non-idiomatic way. Hurrah for the difficulties of the English language. May it ever be shrouded in mystery, if only for the less socially adept among us.