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Author Topic: English Language  (Read 2362 times)

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Offline Tallman

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English Language
« on: July 29, 2005, 11:47:07 AM »
If you've learned to speak fluent English, you must be a genius!

Reasons why the English language is so hard to learn:

1. The bandage was wound around the wound.
2. The farm was used to produce produce.
3. The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4. We must polish the Polish furniture.
5. He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7. Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8. A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum
9. When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10. I did not object to the object.
11. The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12. There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13. They were too close to the door to close it.
14. The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15. A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16. To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17. The wind was too strong to wind the sail
18. After a number of injections my jaw got number.
19. Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
20. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests
21. How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France.
Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.

Quicksand works slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?

If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth?
One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese?
If the plural of mouse is mice, and the plural of louse is lice, why isn't the plural of house hice?
Why is the plural of man men, but the plural of human is not humen?
And more than one ox is oxen, but more than one fox is not foxen.

If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? Is it an odd, or an end?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Why do we park on driveways, and drive on parkways?

Have noses that run and feet that smell? (Then you may have been built upside down)

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out, and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible. Why doesn't "Buick" rhyme with "quick"?

I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble but not you,
On hiccough, thorough, lough and through,

Well done. And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps.
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.

And dead: It's said like bed, not bead
For goodness sake don't call it "deed".
Watch out for meat and great and threat, (They rhyme with suite and straight and debt).

A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother.
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear.

And then there's dose and rose and lose - Just look them up - and goose and choose;
And cork and work and card and ward And font and front and work and sword

And do and go and thwart and cart -
Come, come I've hardly made a start!

English is great, despite its complexities. While the irregularities in spelling convention and grammar cause problems for non-native speakers, they also reflect the language's long and chequered history, during which words were assimilated from many different cultures. These all contributed to make English what it is today: a beautiful, charming mishmash, that can both endear you to it, and frustrate you at the same time.
The Conquering Lion of Judah shall break every chain.

Offline pede54

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Re: English Language
« Reply #1 on: July 31, 2005, 07:55:10 AM »
cheers man that made me laugh out loud......so true............ ;D

 

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