Posted by Polar Pilot on March 21, 2001 at 03:25:26:
In Reply to: Universal Language posted by Ken on March 20, 2001 at 15:53:42:
REASONS WHY THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IS 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 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, that you comb through annals of history but not a
single annal? 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? How can overlook and oversee be
opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike? How can
the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell another?
Have you noticed that we talk about certain things only when they
are absent?
Have you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful gown? Met
a sung hero or experienced requited love? Have you ever run into
someone who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable? And
where are all those people who ARE spring chickens or who would
ACTUALLY hurt a fly?
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, isn't a race at all). That is why, when the stars
are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are
invisible. And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up
this essay, I end it.