My recollection of the English-like nature of Applescript is that there would be multiple ways to express something, and more than one of them would work, but it always seemed totally unpredictable which would work and which wouldn't. That's actually a bit worse (more frustrating) than the way you're describing it. Overall, I agree with you that it was unsatisfying for both professional programmers and non-programmers, and that's why it failed to take off.