From: "Chris Cléirigh"
Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2001 08:45:47 +1000
:
Reasons why the English language is so 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?
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 [sic]? 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, 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.
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Opinions expressed in this email are my own unless otherwise stated.
If you have received this in error, please ignore it.
Phil Graham, Lecturer (Communication)
University of Queensland
http://www.geocities.com/pw.graham/
www.uq.edu.au/~uqpgraha/
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