Forums IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ PhotoReading, Memory Optimizer O/T why comprehension isn't always easy.

This little treatise on the lovely language we share is only for the brave. It was passed on by a linguist, original author unknown. Peruse at your leisure, English lovers. 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?

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. And why doesn't "Buick" rhyme with "quick

Alex

[This message has been edited by AlexK (edited August 09, 2003).]

OK, I've just about stopped laughing.

Languages have always fascinated me because I'm always try to make sense of stuff and it really bugs me when I can't make sense of it.

Your example was absolutely brilliant in demonstrating the unique power of the human brain.

It gives a glimmer of the huge difference between our limited conscious reasoning minds and our subconscious, far far more powerful subconscious minds.

Your post has come to me in absolutely perfect timing.

I'm currently studying to become MCSE which is a Microsoft Certification.I just wrote in a thread on that site how computers baffle me and why don't they make more semse like normal human thinking.

Now I am laughing my head off after reading your post Alex because computers make far more sense than human thinking.

I'm going to write another post there under my original post on the other site because now I feel stupid for saying that human thinking was easier then Microsoft thinking.

Thanks for the brilliant thread Alex. lol.

[This message has been edited by flex22 (edited August 09, 2003).]

I took a gander at our dictionary and assure can you mob means a large number of anything to quote directly from the dictionary

quote:

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Range of application is much wider in Australia than elsewhere and one can talk of 'a huge mob of sheep, a nice mob of people or even a mob of sausages'.

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Yes it is correct to say that To Knock up means to give a wake up call is a very nice polite way of saying that, 'someone is about to, or has taken pleasure in bringing a person back to their sense... usually by use of sudden impact to the moosh. (to knock ones block off their shoulder or said another way if you cannot make them see your point of view, make them see sense, you deck 'em i.e use physical means). The second application is usually understood when one is talking about a sheila (a female) meaning she is now in the family way.

Alex

quote:

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Originally posted by jonah:
Alex--
Could it also be that English--especially American--has/uses more slang in every day speech than speakers of other languages. Speaking from an American perspective, the Canadians, British, Australian, New Zealander, and other parts of the English speaking world use less slang than the Americans. Even the slang has different meanings in each English speaking country:
Mob is a gang of people in U.S., but is a herd of Animals in Australia. In Britain, To Knock up means to give a wake up call, while in America, it has a TOTALLY DIFFERENT meaning.

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I doubt very much that there is more American slang than there is English. This side of the pond we have no trouble understanding the vast majority of what's said American colloquialism-wise, because of the vast influx of films and books. The chances that Americans know what we're talking about when we tell someone to stop being so mardy because they didn't get the snap they wanted is much less likely. Infact, most of Britain doesn't really know what that means because a lot of slang is so localised it rarely gets heard elsewhere ;-)

A place called banks a couple of miles up the road from where I live you may hear something like:

"Ef thee plantum craaaaaidly on that slawp, thee'll be fust en Bonks"

Which means, if you plant them nicely on that slope, they'll be first in Banks (Banks being the town)

That is a strong form of the dialect from Lancashire but as I live on the border between two different regions my dialect changes depending on how much time I'm spending in either region.

As for American slang, well I understand much of what's said but that's because most of what I hear is through films which are probably more considerate in using strong dialect.

I'm sure there's regions of the US (such as the south)that I'd find very hard to understand.

Different dialects of English is difficult too. In the Midwest U.S., there are many. Like a 'bubbler' is a water fountian in Milwaukee, Wisconsin but it isn't known in "universal" midwestern slang. And dialects do merge too. Like in Ypsilanti, we spoke a dialect which combined Midwestern-Southern Appalachian dialect. In the Northern Michigan, its more a dialect of "Finnlish" (English spoken with Finnish),

Kaiden,
Milwaukee, WI

We used to have a chant.

Ain't ain't in the dictionary
Ain't ain't in a book
Ain't ain't a word
So I ain't gonna look.

You got to hope the other party "ain't got" a Macquarie dictionary because it's in there.

I remember when I moved 250 miles out of Sydney (many people travel that distance to and from work every day here in Australia so you think we speak the same language). I started school there they told me to go and get my "port". I went 'huh? 'I don't have one' 'ya do so.' They went and got it for me... was I supposed to feel sheepish or what?

Alex

[This message has been edited by AlexK (edited August 10, 2003).]