Posted on 12/31/2001 9:36:55 PM PST by Rowdee
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.
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!!!
1)There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
2) English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France.
3) Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.
AND CONSIDER THIS......
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? Or, 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?
English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what other 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?
Marvel at the unique lunacy of a language where 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.
I had a brother-in-law who was deaf-mute. What a hoot! Fastest writer alive he was....only it wasn't complete sentences....if he was going to the store, he wrote "store" and left!
He came to live with us at our ranch in Montana. I was busy learning the new role of Super Suzie HomeMaker--canning, baking, churning butter, making cheese, the whole 9 yards. Sometimes when my daughters came in from school I'd be in the middle of making a batch of something and trying to get dinner going...and they would invariably ask a question or make comments and I'd come back with "yeah, well , uh, oh wait a minute...." sort of response and the girls always laughed and carried on that Momma stuttered or she couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time.
Anyhow, we had a rule that at dinner time, hubby, Clarence, the deaf-mute, my 2 teenage daughters and I would all use sign language--to develop our skills and to really make Clarence feel that we wanted him in our family. Daughters and I had to carry the little sign language cards. One evening I had cooked porkchops, biscuits, mashed taters and gravy, and he was antimated as he was describing how he felt about the meal.
To respond to him, I didn't want to just say, "thank you", so I had my little card and was forming the letters, screwed up, started over--this happened a couple of times as I was all flustered. My 14 year old daughter very quietly said, "Oh, God! Now she's stuttering in sign language".
Since I don't have any cents to spend, there is no sense in going shopping.
I hate to do this, but it's the law:
So the plural of choose is cheese.
"He took minutes to choose a choose from the plate of cheese, sheez"
Oh well.......
Have a great day.
LOL! Happy New Year Rowdee! :)
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