You Think English is Easy???

[TexasBred]

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'

 

[HerefordSire]

Very good TB. It made me think about America starting our own country. I guess our main language could have been French or Spanish.

 

[Lammie]

I've always marveled at how people learn the language here. Having studied Spanish, German and English, I have found that English is harder than either of the other two and I speak it!

That being said, I still think that English should be our "official" language. If I moved to Germany, I expect I'd have to pick up the language or starve to death. And Germans are pretty tolerant about other people mauling their language compared to say, the French.

Having been around HS students for the past three years, I hear mangled English all the time anyway.

 

[TexasBred]

Very good TB. It made me think about America starting our own country. I guess our main language could have been French or Spanish.

We could be headed back to the spanglish already. Always heard English was one of the hardest languages in the world to speak correctly. I've been trying to learn it all my life and still butcher it at times.

 

[HerefordSire]

I've always marveled at how people learn the language here. Having studied Spanish, German and English, I have found that English is harder than either of the other two and I speak it!

That being said, I still think that English should be our "official" language. If I moved to Germany, I expect I'd have to pick up the language or starve to death. And Germans are pretty tolerant about other people mauling their language compared to say, the French.

Having been around HS students for the past three years, I hear mangled English all the time anyway.

I studied German. My mother knows six languages fluently. She is a retired English teacher with a masters in Spanish. When I was growing up, she would always correct my English.

 

[HerefordSire]

Very good TB. It made me think about America starting our own country. I guess our main language could have been French or Spanish.

We could be headed back to the spanglish already. Always heard English was one of the hardest languages in the world to speak correctly. I've been trying to learn it all my life and still butcher it at times.

I have the basic cable package and there are 3-4 Spanish channels I think.

 

[HOSS]

I speak spanish in addition to english. I find it interesting at how butchered my spanish is due to learning it in several different geographical areas. Most of my spanish was learned in Mexico, Guatamala and Puerto Rico so I speak a mixture. When I am speaking to Mexicans sometimes I get a very strange look. They tell me that my accent is very good, almost flawless, but my word choices can sometimes be odd. Especially if I use a word normally used by Guatamalans. This works visa versa with the Guatamalans or Puerto Ricans.

 

[TexasBred]

Hoss did you try to pick up any of that Totanaka indian talk?? Sounds almost like Vietnamese.

 

[hillsdown]

I hate to admit this but English is my husband's 3rd language and his spelling is better than mine, I still have to correct his grammar. I must say that while I am trying to learn dutch they do not have as many idiocincricies in their language as we do with English, but I still find it difficult. 8)

He says the key to learning another language is watching your favorite show with subtitles and reading books that you have read before in the language you are trying to learn. I think the best way to learn a language is to move to the country.

 

[HOSS]

Hoss did you try to pick up any of that Totanaka indian talk?? Sounds almost like Vietnamese.

No. Most Indian stuff sounds very difficult to master. No wonder it is dying out in North America. I do continue to work on my Chinese (Mandarin). It is very difficult because you don't get the help of being able to read it unless it is written in PingYing which is the sounding of the words spelled out with english letters. For instance HELLO in Chinese is spelled NeeHow in pingying. NO PROBLEM is MayWanTee and so on.