Well, I argued with myself for quite a while whether to comment on this post. On the one hand, I do understand that it is only meant to be funny, and I respect that (and certainly don't mean this comment as an attack on you for posting this). On the other, this (and similar posts like this all over the Internet and in other forms and formats) reveals an utter lack of understanding of the concept and the rules of language as such and a wilful ignorance thereof, virtually unheard of in any other field - rarely do you read a layman's opinion on New Zealand rock formations or the latest breakthrough in molecular chemistry. Yet, people whose only qualification in this matter is their vocal knowledge of English (and yes, I do know that it is fairly elitist of me, but the Internet proves to me time and again that mastery of spoken English does not come with any skill whatsoever of written English as well). Forgive me for such a simile, but that is like claiming to understand non-Euclidean geometry simply because you can count to ten when your hands are empty.

But enough of my griping. Yes, there are irregularities in English. There are irregularities in any language. I haven't used French in quite a while, but I'm sure that there are polysemous words there as well. I'm quite certain that Diegueño (a Native American language on the California-Mexico border) has affixes that look similar to different word roots. Even creoles have, in the process of creolisation, accrued features that are not unique. It is only thanks to the ubiquity of English as a de facto lingua franca of the modern world that these patterns gain widespread audience and make English seem special.

There are very few occasions in the history of any language (even if we limit ourselves to the past-Nostratic Indo-European development) when a change influences the language as a whole - the Great Vowel Shift in Germanic languages is probably the most common and best-known example of such change. Most changes work on individual words - whether they are semantic (change of scope of meaning) or morphological (usually as a result of folk etymology - which in turn is usually a result of opacity of the word). At the same time, word formation and derivational morphemes are constantly fossilising and being created, and what was once a productive (e.g.) suffix is now as opaque as can be.

Therefore the tooth follows the proto-IE ablaut pluralisation in teeth, while booth follows the English pluralisation into booths. Writers do write, while grocers used to sell things in gross (as evidenced in the older form grossers) - both words were (presumably) formed from the core word + the agentive suffix -er. Teach comes from proto-Germanic and has forms that are influenced by the umlaut of that language, whereas preach comes from Latin and has nothing of that sort.

I have to admit that I am less clear on the stress patterns of zero derivation. However, it seems to me the most obvious answer is the economy of language - the balance between the least effort necessary and the needed information to convey - and in cases like zero derivation (i.e. using the graphically identical word for different word classes), changing the stress pattern (or the pronunciation as such in monosyllabic words) seems to be all that is necessary to coin the word with a clear and separate meaning.

Finally, most of the phrases in the post are just that - phrases. 'To make amends' is a phrase as meaningful as 'to drink'. 'To make amend', on the other hand, would be akin to 'to drin'. And yet, no one asks why English lacks such a verb. Similarly, phrasal verbs are usually formed to fill a specific niche. And if the meaning shifts centuries later? Well, that's language for you. Always changing - but usually not in a way you can expect.

English does carry the legacy of two languages - Old English (or Anglo-Saxon; please, if you remember only one thing from my ramblings, remember this: do not use the term Old English for anything past 1066 [and most certainly not for 19th century!]), and Old French, or Norman French.

P.S.: Because Buick is an alternative spelling (the history of haphazard spelling dates far before the Eternal September) of the surname Bewick (as a quick search on the Wikipedia shows), while quick comes from the Old English cwic (pronounced about the same).

P.P.S.: I know that I may sometimes come off as an elitist show-off, and in part it is true - it is quite difficult not to feel somewhat superior on the Internet, where people frequently produce the written equivalents of the cavemen-like "Me hit him stick!" And I have, for a couple years now, written mainly academic essays, which certainly influenced my writing as far as the sentence composition and lexis are concerned. However, to reiterate my point from the beginning, I did not write this to attack the poster, but to instead comment on some of the more interesting aspects of English that were in the post.