Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Debs.]

yep, must be a dead easy language for others to pick up (mind you, at least we dont allocate everything a gender)

Including Alan Carr!

[Entwood]

Similer lines ... who'd want to learn English .. a tad long but .....


THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Do you think the English Language is easy?

Can you read these right the first time?

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.
      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 an eggplant, nor ham in a hamburger, and no apple or pine in a 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 Ppig.

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 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?
In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?
Why do we ship by truck and send cargo by ship?
How do you 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...
when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible...

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, that word 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?
Why are candidates UP for election, and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report?
We call UP our friends...
We brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver, warm UP the leftovers, and clean UP the kitchen...
We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP cars...

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...

This UP word is confusing...

We open UP a store in the morning, but we close it UP at night...
We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP.
I could go on, but I'll wrap it UP, for now my time is UP, so time to shut UP!

[Nickbat]

Indeed, this thread serves an appropriate reminder to members that the plural of "bollock" does NOT end in an "x"

 

[Stevie-blunder]

They do say the English language is the hardest one to learn, we take it for granted. Must make us English a super race 

[Chris_H]

Indeed, this thread serves an appropriate reminder to members that the plural of "bollock" does NOT end in an "x"

 

Tell that to the Granada-owner who used to drive round this neighbourhood registered OBO 110 X.

[jereboam]

I was tickled on watching an episode of Road Wars some months back where two policemen repeatedly referred to 'the premise'.  What they meant was 'the premises' as there is no separate word for one property.  I dismissed it as a spurious error because policemen on these programmes do appear to try and use impressive language wrongly.  But then I heard a far more senior officer make the same mistake on the news just a few days ago.

Institutionalised incomprehensibility!  That's what it is.

In the days when I had a job, I spent a lot of time working on big databases.  Many of these use Post Code files to input and store addresses.  The data source for these systems is usually the Post Office PAF database.  This always refers to the Premise, and it irritates me every time I see it.   

There is a word "premise", but it means "a proposition upon which an argument is based".