words

[CANV EFM]

Subject: Reasons why the English language is

so hard to learn

 

 

This little treatise on the lovely language we

share is only for the

brave,

not for the faint-hearted. It will make you crazy

if you think about it

too

long. It was passed on by a linguist, the original

author unknown.

Peruse

at your leisure, English lovers.

 

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?

 

Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There

is no egg in

eggplant, nor is there ham in hamburger; neither

apple nor pine in

pineapple.

 

English muffins weren't invented in England nor

French fries in France.

 

Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which

aren't sweet, are meat.

 

We take English for granted. But if we explore its

paradoxes, we find

that

quicksand can work 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?

 

Or the plural of moose, meese? One goose, 2 geese.

So one moose, 2

meese?

One index, 2 indices?

 

Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but

not one amend. If you

 

have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all

but one of them, what

do

you call it?

 

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?

If a vegetarian eats

vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? (Humans?)

 

 

Sometimes I think all the English speakers should

be committed to an

asylum

for the verbally insane.

 

In what language do people recite at a play and

play at a recital?

 

Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses

that run and feet that

smell?

 

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

[pabird]

Only we understand us, makes you proud to be unique and English

[Colin Zeal EFM]

Flammable and Inflammable are the same thing.

 

 

[Laz]

We work with speech recognition here and the software we use can understand the sentence that has the words: Mr Right, right, rite and write, in it, and it gets them all right (correct)!