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THE CONFUSING ENGLISH LANGUAGE
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So...you thought you were tough enough to try to learn English? This
little treatise on the lovely language we share is only for the brave. It
was passed on by a linguist, original author unknown.
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 or ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English
muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. 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? One goose, 2 geese. So
one moose, 2 meese?
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one
amend. If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?
In what
other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by
car 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.
Why isn't phonetic spelled the way it sounds?
Why do we drive on parkways and park on driveways?
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