about the english language

this follows a rather lenghty discussion with a friend during a session......


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?

Let's face it - English is a crazy language.

There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in ham burger; 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

Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend, that you comb through annals of history but not a single annal? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call 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 different?

How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike?

How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell
another?

Have you noticed that we talk about certain things only when they are absent? Have you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful gown?

Met a sung hero or experienced requited love? Have you ever run into someone who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable?

And where are all those people who ARE spring chickens or who would ACTUALLY hurt a fly?

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. However, when the lights are out, they are invisible. Why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it?

And I would like to add: "Why do you park in your driveway and
drive on a parkway?"

 

I like those 2 accidental 8)'s ya got there.

I can explain the Hamburger for those who's knowledge of geography is even worse than mine, which is real bad. Hamburg is a city in Germany where they invented the Hamburger.

You'd be surprised by how many of those things came from other languages, if you'd know. No languages have been invented by computers. This 'uniqueness' mostly owes it existence to a very scarce vocabulary.

 

I hope someone¹ that isn't prolific in English doesn't read this. I bet it will make their brain kink up in the middle.




















¹.......What? You expected a name, or something?

 

To think it evolved from grunts and other noises to become one of the most confusing damn languages in the world.

 

And now a lot of that English language is coming back into other languages. Us Dutch people (and not us alone) tend to use a lot of English words as normal Dutch words now

 

The reason English is such a messed up language is that it is made up of probably hundreds of different laguages, dialects etc. There are very few actual English word in English. 'The' is one example. I think 'He' is as well.

There are loads of things in that rather long case-study there that are not English at all - french fries were coined by the Americans, who obviously know nothing about the French.

There are also words that are similar in pronuciation and spelling, but come from different root languages so that they mean something different.

Some phrases also come from different regions, and thus originally had different meanings in different areas, but since becoming widespread, appear to contradict each other.

Also, it is not good mixing the beginnings and endings of words around and then complaining that it doesn't make sense, because each prefix and suffix has different meaning depending on where it is placed.

In fact, quite alot of the English language is actually quite logical (hence you can learn it fairly easily), although it is not as logical as some languages out there.

In short, most of the discrepencies in the language can be attributed to the fact that it is made up from many other different languages.

 

Especially food products. I'm not sure there's any English word for food of any kind that isn't from another language.

But I like English. It's complexity allows a lot more interesting prose, because every synonym has a slightly different meaning.

 

What is more amazing to me than the actual language itself, is how inflections in your voice, movements in the muscles in your face, and other body language communicates just as much as the words you speak.

For example, say this: Retard is a sexy muther-effer.

Now say this: Retard is a sexy muther-effer?

Notice your voice pitching upwards towards the end of the second one? They are the same sentence, same words, but, without the inflection in your voice, the lifting of your eyebrows, when you say it the second way, it would mean the same thing.

 

These claims are true to almost all (if not all) languages in the world. If you search for it, you will find sillyness in every language.

 

It would be a very dull and uninspiring language that didn't...

 

Yeah, it would be Esperanto.

PS - mrnobodie left out the Pussy/Pussy one in his list, ie. "My Mom's pussy's pussy is pussy."

 

Milo, i love your sig. and that mental image is just wrong. wrong, i tell you, WRONG!!!!!!!

 

If english is a wierd language, then I am a wierd person...

(Two days ago I scored a 13 = A+ = 10/10 in english...)

 

Wait.... you scored 13, but that's a 10/10?

I'm so confused...

 

13 is the top grade in Denmark. It goes like this:


13-11-10-9-8-7-6-5-3-0


6 is passed, 5 is failed, 8 is average. There's no 12 or 4 or 2 or 1. Fairly odd system.


(I got 11 in English, but i only got 8 in Danish :razz: )

 

I am used to the English language, I understand it fully, and you are all right, it does come from different languages. Like there are three theres, there, thier and they're. There are also many other words that are spelled the same and pronounced totaly different. Then there are some that are pronounced the same but mean different things. This is one wierd world I live in.

 

Yes, but we are discussing the real world....

Come now, you didn't honestly expect that NOT to come did you? :wink:

 

Oh really now?

 

Well mabye not fully, there are still some stuff in it that confuse me and stuff. But I understand a lot of it and stuff, I do live here after all and all that bad grammer is not how I really use the language. I am a lot better at grammer and spelling then that.