Do You Think English Is Easy?

Do 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. If we explore its paradoxes, we find t hat 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 hous e 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.

And this UP is confusing: 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.

One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP, because now my time is UP , so it is time to shut UP.

One more thing:

What is the first thing you do in the morning and the last thing you do at night? U-P

try to learn Dutch.

That is very funny! Thank you! It certainly made me smile --- and perhaps I'll think UP something more to say!

EDIT: by the way, Spanish has its own quirks/idiosyncrasies --- and boy is idiosyncrasy a hard word to spell correctly.

This post has been edited by gildardo: Aug 6 2008, 11:06 PM

I spent last year studying both English and Dutch. I passed the practical part of both and flunked the theoretical part of both. IMO Dutch grammar and spelling makes more sense than the English counterpart.

IMO English should evolve more. Every change in Dutch spelling is met with a shedload (woohoo a compound noun that's actually written as one word) of criticism, but in the end most of the many changes made in the last 10 years made sense and made Dutch easier to use and learn for people that never had to know the old rules.

English grammar and spelling seems quite random at times.

I passed the practical Dutch linguistic exam by knowing and applying the rules, whereas I passed the English one by following my gut feeling rather than following the rules I thought I learned and understood.

The only reason people think English is easy is because it's the foreign language to which we are exposed the most. (which we are exposed to the most?).

English pronunciation is pythonesque. In Dutch if you can write a word and have a basic grip of Dutch phonology you can pronounce that word, but in English it would still be educated guessing (bear, hear). The first time I read The Raven by Poe I couldn't even pronounce the first line correctly(Once upon a midnight dreary while I pondered weak and weary) I was clueless about the pronunciation(to pronounce) dreary and weary even though (why two words fcol?) I can say she sells see shells(same) by the see shore(same) till my tongue goes numb.

In short: English is an easy language to express yourself in, but it's bloody hard to master it.

i was told long ago English is probably 1 of the hardest languages in the world to learn and understand properly ,as the above post shows 1 word spelt exactly the same can have multiple meanings.

I think I'll call Diagonal my friend and wake Down in the morning.

Well from what I can see there are a few Americanisms in you post BBB.

It's all about context Sure, it's tough at times but once mastered you're good as gold. You can walk into any country in the world and just shout loudly and slowly and get what you want.

I'm just glad that I don't have to learn another language... as an English speaker, I'm fortunate enough that 104 other countries and territories use my language (52 of them as an official or first language) and one in every three people in the world understand and speak my language to some degree.

For those that don't, I find saying the words louder and appending the letter "O" or "E" every few words does the trick. As does the indiscriminate insertion of the odd "la" or "le"

Excuse-e me-o, where-e is la fish & chip-o shop?

reminds me of this poem, that I heard on the radio a few months back

Nice post enigma

Agreed. That was a good post, really well done and catches you out once or twice.

ROFL

I'm tounge tied

Once again:

Thanks enigma! It's odd and funny how the poem made me do a few double-takes, when in a different context I would've had no problem with any of the words.