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Saturday, March 15, 2008

English is difficult

This can be found in many websites and I'm not sure who is the original author, but it is true. It might explains why English is so difficult 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 could 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. I did not object to the object.
  9. There was a row among the oarsmen, about how to row.
  10. They were too close to the door to close it.
  11. Upon seeing the tear in the painting, I shed a tear.
  12. How can I intimate this, to my most intimate friend?
  13. It's time to wind down the wind farm.
  14. Most common people, live on the common common.
  15. I shed my clothes in the shed.
There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in a hamburger, neither apple nor pine in a pine-apple. English muffins weren’t invented in England, nor 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. Why it is that baker’s bake, but grocers don’t groce? 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?

If teachers taught, why don’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? We ship by truck and send cargo by ship?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language, in which a 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 finally, how about when you want to shut down your computer, you have to hit “START”!

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