I used to be very often surprised by the English language (constantly running into my own false beliefs) and it was frustrating, until I started to read fan fiction. Since then, my attitude changed from 'wow, it's a word' to 'ah well, if t ain't broken, don't fix it'. Not sure if it is a good thing, but it seems to help with communication.

ETA: having just read the article 'Why don't people help others more?', I begin to suspect that donating to charities is actually one of the things that I don't want to do at all, even though I allocate money for it in my budget. I always thought of myself as not stingy, and it turned out I am. Feels... odd.