The enigma that is English...

I find myself having UTMOST respect for all the poor souls who do not have English as a 1st language yet are forced to learn it. Being one of the most widely spoken languages of the world, you would think that it would be more accomodating right? For starters, there are versions: British,American, Australian,NewZealand, Shakespearan bluh bluh which means once you open your mouth, you are bound to be accosted with the 3 million dollar question 'where's your accent from'? I come from a country that is a former British colony. In their enthusiasm to spread the good word and educate the creatures of the black continent, the queen's loyal subjects hastily drafted up a 'Cambridge' syllabus and hence the birth of a, e, i, o.....
English has also managed to complicate issues more by having several words to mean the same thing, infact this issue is such a puzzle that one needs a thesaurus.
I once saw a funky word, 'miasma' and despite the exotic sound in it, the damn word is synonymous to cloud/haze/fog e.t.c. BUT you will never hear me say, 'Whoa dude! you best take your umbrella man, there's lots of miasma outside!'...Uummm on the same note does miasma have a plural? can you actually form a sentence with miasma?
Thanks to El Nino, were having dry weather and lots of haze (or is it miasma) in KL?
This issue hangs over my head like a bad miasma?
I mean really at which point can a line be drawn here?....
One of the expressions I have always found strange is 'the falling of trees'. Apparently I cannot say that my brother and I went to the woods last week and felled some trees, or can I?after all the past tense of fall is fell or how about next week we shall fall some trees? ...
I could go on and on but me reckons I have made me point.
Im laughing my head off trying to imagine a conversion between any given fox and vixen in some shakespear lingo in this era...whats a 'nyas' anyway?
And ofcourse expressions in English from one english speaker to another....'Its all Greek to me'-surely if I was Greek how should I interpret this?
All this wondering is driving me nuts!(again whats the connection between driving and nuts)
6.51pm: The journey to my abode is nigh. I beg to take leave.

pss: I scored a very decent grade at English all thru my schooling years. Im not having as much luck with Spanish though..