The absurdities of English
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Posted by Rohit a long time back, found it in the archives. I find myself in splits everytime I read it, so I thought it was worthy of a repost.
Anyone who has ever tried to learn English as a second language or Teach it to second language learners should understand the ironic humor in this: 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 (like me)eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum fYou just now noticed this? English is not a language to analize. It's a lot like religion: If you question it, you see problems with it. Personally, I think English is an odd language, but I like being able to manipulate it. :) Cargo goes by ship and shipment goes by car Your nose runs but your feet smell There are thousands of these types of things. For more take a look at George Carlin or Ghallager. I was once watching TV and an American was talking to a Russian audience. He had an interpreter next to him and when the interpreter spoke, it was translated at the bottom of the screen back into English. The speaker started off by saying: "I'm tickled to death to be here." The interpreter looked puzzled and stopped for a second. Soon he seemed to think of something and spoke. What he said was translated as: "I'm being eaten alive by itchy insects being here." :laugh:
..........Zack.......... Developer Extraordinaire && Full Time Geek
Think different, think beige "Don't go out of your way to step on people's toes, but don't stop walking all-together." GCS\P\SS d- s-:- a-- C++$ U--- P--- L- E- W++ N o K-? w+++ O++ !M-- V PS+ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5+ X+ R++ tv++ b++ DI++ D+++ G+>G++++ e* h- r++ y+
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Posted by Rohit a long time back, found it in the archives. I find myself in splits everytime I read it, so I thought it was worthy of a repost.
Anyone who has ever tried to learn English as a second language or Teach it to second language learners should understand the ironic humor in this: 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 (like me)eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum f:) I am actually reading a very good book that answers all those questions : "A Natural History of Language - The Power of Babel" by John McWhorter. Most of it has to do with your statement : "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." Which isn't quite true. English, like all languages, wasn't invented so much as it evolved over time under the influence of many other languages. Evidently over 90% of English words are derived from other languages. The book shows a number of ways in which words change over time. One way is what the author calls rebracketing. e.g. (from the book) Did you ever wonder what the nick in nickname was ? What's 'nick' about the name ? As it happens, the word began as ekename; in earlier English, eke meant 'also'. Now that made sense - your 'also' name. Through time, however, because the word was used so often after 'an' - 'an ekename' - people began to interpret the 'n' in 'an' as the first letter of the following word. Hence a nickname. What had occurred is a 'rebracketing' : what began as [an][ekename] became [a][nickname]. Apron began as napron, borrowed from the French word naperron for 'napkin'. Through the same process 'a napron' became 'an apron'. The French did this as well, orange was from the Hindi word narangi and gave up it's initial ‘n’ to the article preceding it (that's why orange is still naranja in Spanish). In early England, a reeve was an estate manager. The reeve of a county, or shire, was the shire reeve, or scir gerefa in Old English. Through time, gerefa, because it did not have an accent, began to be pronounced less distinctly, just as Latin case endings did, and gradually became processed as just a sequence of sounds appended to the first word. The eventual result, with further sound changes, was our sheriff : [scir][gerefa] to [sheriff]. He goes on to explain : Where goose and geese came from. We have warmth from warm, growth from grow - why not slowth for slow. Well actually there is, but sound change turned slowth into sloth. Why Charlie Brown is a bald 8-yr old - because until the mid 1960's, in comics and cartoons baldness was a kind of established signifier for dopiness - a meaning which has subsequently disappeared. I find all this fascinating, and much more complex than most might assume. ...cmk
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Posted by Rohit a long time back, found it in the archives. I find myself in splits everytime I read it, so I thought it was worthy of a repost.
Anyone who has ever tried to learn English as a second language or Teach it to second language learners should understand the ironic humor in this: 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 (like me)eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum fI hate it when people sit there and complain about English. Don't like it? Go speak Spanish or something. Try that, learning all those different pronunciations and learning the different forms of nouns and verbs. English was a language that took its vocabulary from many different sources then made it into its own. What is an aquarium? A tank of water. Latin aquarium, source of water. Aqua is water in Latin. AQUArium. There's an example of borrowed vocabulary. A hamburger was a food that came from Hamburg. Then it evolved into a cheeseburger - a hamburger with cheese. An eggplant was a plant that similar physical characteristics of an egg: hard shell outside - liquidous inside. Buick was how you pronounced the last name of the guy who started the company. It's not an English word, necessarily. I doubt the last name is from England or anywhere near enough. And the whole thing with homonyms and synonyms, it's so lame. In most European languanges you have to figure out what's being said and what words are being used is by context anyways. English is a European language. Stop over-analyzing the most powerful modern language used and go back to coding, where everything is nice and structured. Or 'struct'.
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Posted by Rohit a long time back, found it in the archives. I find myself in splits everytime I read it, so I thought it was worthy of a repost.
Anyone who has ever tried to learn English as a second language or Teach it to second language learners should understand the ironic humor in this: 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 (like me)eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum fI guess to those of us who are (mostly) "native" speakers, it's so inbred that we don't give it a second thought. Since I speak Spanish as a second language I personally find a lot of their words and phrases hilarious, but of course, a native Spanish doesn't. Cheers, Tom Archer, Inside C# Mainstream is just a word for the way things always have been -- just a middle-of-the-road, tow-the-line thing; a front for the Man serving up the same warmed-over slop he did yesterday and expecting you to say, "Thank you sir, may I have another?"
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Posted by Rohit a long time back, found it in the archives. I find myself in splits everytime I read it, so I thought it was worthy of a repost.
Anyone who has ever tried to learn English as a second language or Teach it to second language learners should understand the ironic humor in this: 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 (like me)eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum fWhy are apartments so close together?
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Why are apartments so close together?
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Posted by Rohit a long time back, found it in the archives. I find myself in splits everytime I read it, so I thought it was worthy of a repost.
Anyone who has ever tried to learn English as a second language or Teach it to second language learners should understand the ironic humor in this: 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 (like me)eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum fIts a wonderful language that you can fully express all your feelings. Its not to be analysed. What other language can you swear every other word when your angrgy and still make a coherent sentence that people can understand. :-D If you want I can give you an example of this in the soapbox. :cool:
"Je pense, donc je mange." - Rene Descartes 1689 - Just before his mother put his tea on the table. Shameless Plug - Distributed Database Transactions in .NET using COM+
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I hate it when people sit there and complain about English. Don't like it? Go speak Spanish or something. Try that, learning all those different pronunciations and learning the different forms of nouns and verbs. English was a language that took its vocabulary from many different sources then made it into its own. What is an aquarium? A tank of water. Latin aquarium, source of water. Aqua is water in Latin. AQUArium. There's an example of borrowed vocabulary. A hamburger was a food that came from Hamburg. Then it evolved into a cheeseburger - a hamburger with cheese. An eggplant was a plant that similar physical characteristics of an egg: hard shell outside - liquidous inside. Buick was how you pronounced the last name of the guy who started the company. It's not an English word, necessarily. I doubt the last name is from England or anywhere near enough. And the whole thing with homonyms and synonyms, it's so lame. In most European languanges you have to figure out what's being said and what words are being used is by context anyways. English is a European language. Stop over-analyzing the most powerful modern language used and go back to coding, where everything is nice and structured. Or 'struct'.
Touchee'. "If you don't like the team, get out of the stadium." - Stan Marsh
..........Zack.......... Developer Extraordinaire && Full Time Geek
Think different, think beige "Don't go out of your way to step on people's toes, but don't stop walking all-together." GCS\P\SS d- s-:- a-- C++$ U--- P--- L- E- W++ N o K-? w+++ O++ !M-- V PS+ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5+ X+ R++ tv++ b++ DI++ D+++ G+>G++++ e* h- r++ y+
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Its a wonderful language that you can fully express all your feelings. Its not to be analysed. What other language can you swear every other word when your angrgy and still make a coherent sentence that people can understand. :-D If you want I can give you an example of this in the soapbox. :cool:
"Je pense, donc je mange." - Rene Descartes 1689 - Just before his mother put his tea on the table. Shameless Plug - Distributed Database Transactions in .NET using COM+
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I guess to those of us who are (mostly) "native" speakers, it's so inbred that we don't give it a second thought. Since I speak Spanish as a second language I personally find a lot of their words and phrases hilarious, but of course, a native Spanish doesn't. Cheers, Tom Archer, Inside C# Mainstream is just a word for the way things always have been -- just a middle-of-the-road, tow-the-line thing; a front for the Man serving up the same warmed-over slop he did yesterday and expecting you to say, "Thank you sir, may I have another?"
Well I speak Spanish as native languge, and I find english a rather easy language to learn..It is objective, direct, that´s why it is the language of the world. The verbs don`t change with persons only add an `s`in third person and thats all. In spanish verbs change in every person. also there is a great difference with verb "ser" and "estar" in spanish and in English there is just one that take both meaning "to be". Cheers! Daniel Cespedes "Santa Cruz de la Sierra Paraiso Terrenal!" daniel.cespedes@ieee.org
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Posted by Rohit a long time back, found it in the archives. I find myself in splits everytime I read it, so I thought it was worthy of a repost.
Anyone who has ever tried to learn English as a second language or Teach it to second language learners should understand the ironic humor in this: 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 (like me)eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum fIf the plural of goose is geese, why isn't the plural of moose meese ? :rolleyes: Elaine (glad curiousity didn't kill the fluffy tigress) The tigress is here :-D
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Posted by Rohit a long time back, found it in the archives. I find myself in splits everytime I read it, so I thought it was worthy of a repost.
Anyone who has ever tried to learn English as a second language or Teach it to second language learners should understand the ironic humor in this: 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 (like me)eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum fYou'd probably enjoy reading Richard Lederer. I did my elementary school public speeches on Crazy English. Interesting stuff. - Jason (SonorkID 100.611) The Code Project - Orange makes the art grow fonder
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I hate it when people sit there and complain about English. Don't like it? Go speak Spanish or something. Try that, learning all those different pronunciations and learning the different forms of nouns and verbs. English was a language that took its vocabulary from many different sources then made it into its own. What is an aquarium? A tank of water. Latin aquarium, source of water. Aqua is water in Latin. AQUArium. There's an example of borrowed vocabulary. A hamburger was a food that came from Hamburg. Then it evolved into a cheeseburger - a hamburger with cheese. An eggplant was a plant that similar physical characteristics of an egg: hard shell outside - liquidous inside. Buick was how you pronounced the last name of the guy who started the company. It's not an English word, necessarily. I doubt the last name is from England or anywhere near enough. And the whole thing with homonyms and synonyms, it's so lame. In most European languanges you have to figure out what's being said and what words are being used is by context anyways. English is a European language. Stop over-analyzing the most powerful modern language used and go back to coding, where everything is nice and structured. Or 'struct'.
I haven't seen any complain about English they are just pointing out some odd situations about the language, unless I misunderstood what I've read, besides I think that all languages have some contradictions and all are as complete as English to express what they want. Relax ... life is too short to hate what is not necessary.:-O Cheers! Omar
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I hate it when people sit there and complain about English. Don't like it? Go speak Spanish or something. Try that, learning all those different pronunciations and learning the different forms of nouns and verbs. English was a language that took its vocabulary from many different sources then made it into its own. What is an aquarium? A tank of water. Latin aquarium, source of water. Aqua is water in Latin. AQUArium. There's an example of borrowed vocabulary. A hamburger was a food that came from Hamburg. Then it evolved into a cheeseburger - a hamburger with cheese. An eggplant was a plant that similar physical characteristics of an egg: hard shell outside - liquidous inside. Buick was how you pronounced the last name of the guy who started the company. It's not an English word, necessarily. I doubt the last name is from England or anywhere near enough. And the whole thing with homonyms and synonyms, it's so lame. In most European languanges you have to figure out what's being said and what words are being used is by context anyways. English is a European language. Stop over-analyzing the most powerful modern language used and go back to coding, where everything is nice and structured. Or 'struct'.
nssone wrote: An eggplant was a plant that similar physical characteristics of an egg: hard shell outside - liquidous inside.
I think I missed the point about the eggplant Being in a minority of one, doesn't make you insane
(George Orwell , I think) -
Posted by Rohit a long time back, found it in the archives. I find myself in splits everytime I read it, so I thought it was worthy of a repost.
Anyone who has ever tried to learn English as a second language or Teach it to second language learners should understand the ironic humor in this: 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 (like me)eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum fI like the fact that you cut a tree down, and then you cut it up :D
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Well I speak Spanish as native languge, and I find english a rather easy language to learn..It is objective, direct, that´s why it is the language of the world. The verbs don`t change with persons only add an `s`in third person and thats all. In spanish verbs change in every person. also there is a great difference with verb "ser" and "estar" in spanish and in English there is just one that take both meaning "to be". Cheers! Daniel Cespedes "Santa Cruz de la Sierra Paraiso Terrenal!" daniel.cespedes@ieee.org
Cambalindo wrote: The verbs don`t change with persons only add an `s`in third person and thats all. Exactly. We obviously have the same forms and rules in terms of conjugation. It's just that the word stays the same for all the forms :) Cambalindo wrote: great difference with verb "ser" and "estar" in spanish and in English there is just one that take both meaning "to be". Exactly. That's one of the biggies when you first learn the language. Then there's the feminie vs masuline article that we don't have to worry about. What I love though are things like "El comio la luz!" - literally translated to "He ate the light" - meanin-g "He ran the red light". There's tons of things like that. That's why when I meet someone that's learning a new language, I always tell them that trying to translate verbatim is a mistake. You have to clear your mind and just accept the other language as it is. When you know you're finally getting it is when you start dreaming in the other language. Cheers, Tom Archer, Inside C# Mainstream is just a word for the way things always have been -- just a middle-of-the-road, tow-the-line thing; a front for the Man serving up the same warmed-over slop he did yesterday and expecting you to say, "Thank you sir, may I have another?"
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I hate it when people sit there and complain about English. Don't like it? Go speak Spanish or something. Try that, learning all those different pronunciations and learning the different forms of nouns and verbs. English was a language that took its vocabulary from many different sources then made it into its own. What is an aquarium? A tank of water. Latin aquarium, source of water. Aqua is water in Latin. AQUArium. There's an example of borrowed vocabulary. A hamburger was a food that came from Hamburg. Then it evolved into a cheeseburger - a hamburger with cheese. An eggplant was a plant that similar physical characteristics of an egg: hard shell outside - liquidous inside. Buick was how you pronounced the last name of the guy who started the company. It's not an English word, necessarily. I doubt the last name is from England or anywhere near enough. And the whole thing with homonyms and synonyms, it's so lame. In most European languanges you have to figure out what's being said and what words are being used is by context anyways. English is a European language. Stop over-analyzing the most powerful modern language used and go back to coding, where everything is nice and structured. Or 'struct'.
a) Relax. It's a joke. b) nssone wrote: the most powerful modern language huh? More people speak chinese* than english. And for beauty and expressivenes,, I often prefer my german, and the glimpse of russian I know, thank you. ;P to be fair, there is no "chinese" language as such but two main languages spoken by chinese people. And I'm not sure if the claim holds up for the individual dialects
"Der Geist des Kriegers ist erwacht / Ich hab die Macht" StS
sighist | Agile Programming | doxygen -
Cambalindo wrote: The verbs don`t change with persons only add an `s`in third person and thats all. Exactly. We obviously have the same forms and rules in terms of conjugation. It's just that the word stays the same for all the forms :) Cambalindo wrote: great difference with verb "ser" and "estar" in spanish and in English there is just one that take both meaning "to be". Exactly. That's one of the biggies when you first learn the language. Then there's the feminie vs masuline article that we don't have to worry about. What I love though are things like "El comio la luz!" - literally translated to "He ate the light" - meanin-g "He ran the red light". There's tons of things like that. That's why when I meet someone that's learning a new language, I always tell them that trying to translate verbatim is a mistake. You have to clear your mind and just accept the other language as it is. When you know you're finally getting it is when you start dreaming in the other language. Cheers, Tom Archer, Inside C# Mainstream is just a word for the way things always have been -- just a middle-of-the-road, tow-the-line thing; a front for the Man serving up the same warmed-over slop he did yesterday and expecting you to say, "Thank you sir, may I have another?"
The fact that english uses less words to say the same things make the speech dependant on the context, and a simple phrase can be misunderstood without a context, in catalan, and also in spanish this doesn't happen, and even if I have to write down more or even if I need to learn some extra things, it's a pleasure to be able to play with words when I'm writting and also when I'm speaking. I love english because it allows me to communicate with people in almost all the world, but I love catalan and spanish, because they are pretty and richer (or more complicated if you want).
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I guess to those of us who are (mostly) "native" speakers, it's so inbred that we don't give it a second thought. Since I speak Spanish as a second language I personally find a lot of their words and phrases hilarious, but of course, a native Spanish doesn't. Cheers, Tom Archer, Inside C# Mainstream is just a word for the way things always have been -- just a middle-of-the-road, tow-the-line thing; a front for the Man serving up the same warmed-over slop he did yesterday and expecting you to say, "Thank you sir, may I have another?"
Tom Archer wrote: I personally find a lot of their words and phrases hilarious like "esposa" meaning wife, and "esposas" handcuffs? (at least that's what my dict tells me :rolleyes: )
"Der Geist des Kriegers ist erwacht / Ich hab die Macht" StS
sighist | Agile Programming | doxygen -
Tom Archer wrote: I personally find a lot of their words and phrases hilarious like "esposa" meaning wife, and "esposas" handcuffs? (at least that's what my dict tells me :rolleyes: )
"Der Geist des Kriegers ist erwacht / Ich hab die Macht" StS
sighist | Agile Programming | doxygenIn PR we say "muñecas" for handcuffs. But then again, someone once said that learning Spanish in PR is like learning English in the southern US :~ Cheers, Tom Archer, Inside C# Mainstream is just a word for the way things always have been -- just a middle-of-the-road, tow-the-line thing; a front for the Man serving up the same warmed-over slop he did yesterday and expecting you to say, "Thank you sir, may I have another?"