The English Language

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

joel3739

Registered
Messages
37
Reaction score
0
Location
Las Vegas, NV
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.

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. 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? 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 . .
 
Maybe it's such an incredible language because the British are such jolly people with a tremendous feeling for humour and wit.

Please watch, laugh and cry : Little Britain (a BBC series) and/or Ali G.

Thanks for your entertaining message!
 
If the plural of mouse is mice...

Why isn't the plural of house hice?

If the plural of goose is geese...

Why isn't the plural of moose meese?.....
 
English is crazy. We should be able to spell fish like this: ghoti, with the f sound from enough, the i sound from women and the sh sound from caution.
 
Try to pronaunce this:
w szczebrzeszynie chrzaszcz brzmi w trzcinie

And then you will see that English is normal comparing to Polish
:D
Mania
 
mania:
Try to pronaunce this:
w szczebrzeszynie chrzaszcz brzmi w trzcinie


there you go, Mania!

or try to remember the 2,150 main characters in Japanese script,
and the additional 2,000 to 3,000 characters needed for
specialized reading (they used to have close to 10,000) (we have 26 or 27)

or try to prounounce the four different tonals in Chinese (don't ask)

or try to put together a word in German

engine = thingthatgoesunderhoodofcarandmakesitgovrooom

:14:
 
mania:
Try to pronaunce this:
w szczebrzeszynie chrzaszcz brzmi w trzcinie

And then you will see that English is normal comparing to Polish
:D
Mania

I hate those "vowel challenged" languages. ;)
 

Back
Top Bottom