[smoothy]

You think English is easy?


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) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear..

19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

20) 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 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. 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? 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? 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.

PS. - Why doesn't 'Buick' rhyme with 'quick' ?


You lovers of the English language might enjoy this..

There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is 'UP.'

It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP ?
At a meeting, why does a topic come UP?
Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report?
We call UP our friends.
And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver; we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen.
We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car.
At other times the little word has real special meaning.
People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses.
To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special.
A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP.
We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.

We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP!
To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary.
In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions.
If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used.
It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more.
When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP.
When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP.
When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP.
When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry UP.

[NeedKarma]

Or you could link directly to the original content instead of plagiarizing it: The English Language is Hard

[LadySam]

Wow, never thought so much about UP, but you're right I use it in many of the ways you mentioned.
I guess English is a troublesome language for someone who is trying to learn it.
May I also mention that we:
Drive on parkways and Park on Driveways.

[smoothy]

Or you could link directly to the original content instead of plagiarizing it: The English Language is Hard

Except THAT site plagerized it from someone else because it didn't come from them... it in fact goes way back. I first saw this over 20 years ago... long before the WEB and that site existed.

[Just Dahlia]

I like it:D

[smoothy]

I like it:D

Now imagine how hard it was some someone that was born in a non English speaking country to master our language... I know several.

Toss in Idoms, etc... and that's totally ignoring slang of any type.

[NeedKarma]

Then try French with two genders, then German with three genders.

[smoothy]

Then try French with two genders, then German with three genders.

French actually is easier than english (to a non-native speaker of either)... I used to speak it but haven't for over 25 years... I've likely forgotten a huge part as a result.

German... damn that's hard, I can't even pronounce stuff in German remotely correct. I can't get my mouth to work the right way...

How about Mandarin Chinese... 4 "voices" for every word and each one has a totally different meaning depending in inflection.

Most languages words are spelled just like they are spoken... no so with English.

[NeedKarma]

German - it's the guttural stuff that'll get you.
I'm fluently English-French, I see my daughter stumbling in French as we all did over le vs la but enough reading and writing and she'll get through it.

[smoothy]

German - it's the guttural stuff that'll get ya.
I'm fluently English-French, I see my daughter stumbling in French as we all did over le vs la but enough reading and writing and she'll get through it.

I learned French in Jr and Sr High School... actually did well in it... because when I was through eastern Canada (when I ran into french speakers) and later in France... I did pretty well without a dictionary.

Learned Italian the hard way (total immersion survival method)... and I'm fluent in it... and it shares enough in common with Spanish... I can read spanish text and understand what many spanish speakers are saying. With the Exception of Peurto Ricans... and some Mexicans.

I can pick up about 20% of Portuguese as well as Romanian both... all are based in the same latin roots so have certain similarities.

Boy the things you overhear when they don't know you can understand them some places.

[earl237]

Guess English is harder than I thought, I always took it for granted. I'm lucky I got to learn French starting in kindergarten so I became fluent, but I didn't start learning German until I was nearly 30 so it is much harder although I've made pretty good progress with just books, internet and cds.

[ImClueless345]

Well english in america was probably one of the last languages invented, and there just homophones... I think. If we could change it we probably would so just make up a word to get your "anger" out or something.
Peaceeeeee
AHAHAHA there's an other one! Piece, peace. You forgpt the ones that are spelled differently but pronounced the same. K bye.

[Kahani Punjab]

Smooty,

Only this post by you is worth all the posts I have seen so far, not only on AMHD, but the whole internet. Three cheers!

It'll surely help me master your tongue.

A few more -

1. The teacher said that that that that that student used was wrong.
2. I saw a saw which could not saw.

[smoothy]

Thank you... and trust me, there are MANY who speak no other language, that have great trouble speaking it even remotely correctly. I myself never appreciated how difficult it was until I tried to teach myself another language (Italian) while living and working in Italy a few decades ago. Things few of us ever think about like Idioms and slang are difficult to translate, as their definitions are not literal, and do not translate directly.

Smooty,

Only this post by you is worth all the posts I have seen so far, not only on AMHD, but the whole internet. Three cheers!

It'll surely help me master your tongue.

A few more -

1. The teacher said that that that that that student used was wrong.
2. I saw a saw which could not saw.