The absurdities of English
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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?"
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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).
I disagree strongly that English uses less words. Spanish uses far less words. Examples: * I don't need the article in spanish because the conjugation implies the article. For example "Did you like it?" becomes "Te gusto?" * Combined with the fact that "to be" (ser) and "to have" (haber) are shorter and "I would have gone ..." beccomes "Hubiese ido ..." There are many more examples, but no doubt Spanish is much easier to speak because you don't have all those annoying little words - words that are completely ignored, by the way, in ASL 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 disagree strongly that English uses less words. Spanish uses far less words. Examples: * I don't need the article in spanish because the conjugation implies the article. For example "Did you like it?" becomes "Te gusto?" * Combined with the fact that "to be" (ser) and "to have" (haber) are shorter and "I would have gone ..." beccomes "Hubiese ido ..." There are many more examples, but no doubt Spanish is much easier to speak because you don't have all those annoying little words - words that are completely ignored, by the way, in ASL 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 disagree strongly that English uses less words. Spanish uses far less words. - and this would be (in Spanish): Tom Archer escribió: No estoy para nada de acuerdo en que la lengua inglesa use menos palabras. La lengua española utiliza muchas menos palabras. - Another easy one: In English you can use "you", in Spanish we have "tu","usted","vos"... and other ones that are far away from my normal Spanish use... What you are giving as examples can help you to believe that English uses more words to say something, but if you take a close look at the files that allow some programs to be translated, you'll see that clearly the file that occupy less space is the one that contains English words/phrases and not the one that contains Spanish or Catalan words. I believe that is very clear that IN GENERAL English text it's shorter than Spanish text, we can always find exceptions to that rule, but they are not more than that: exceptions. THE SAME IN SPANISH: Lo que usted está ofreciendo como ejemplos, pueden ayudarle a creer en que la lengua inglesa utiliza mas palabras para decir algo, pero si usted observa detenidamente los archivos que permiten que muchos programas se traduzcan, verá que con diferencia siempre ocupa mucho menos espacio el archivo que contiene las palabras/frases en inglés que no el que contiene las palabras en español o catalán. Creo que es evidente que EN GENERAL es mucho mas corto el texto en inglés que no el texto en español, siempre se pueden encontrar excepciones a la regla, pero no son más que eso: excepciones. IN ORDER TO FINISH... If you get an English dictionary it will have less words that a Spanish dictionary, because English tends to use the same word for more than one meaning (more than Spanish do) there are lots of words that exist in Spanish and that doesn't exist in English for the same reason... (English is more direct but less precise). You can also take a look at the sample just before in this same post... the English sample is shorter (yes, not much shorter), and being sure that I'm a novice in English, I'm sure also that I could have used other words in order to make it shorter and even clearer. You've said that Spanish is easier to speak... well I can tell you that I live in Spain and I don't know how to do it very well (yes I speak it much better than English, but I can speak Spanish every day if I want). Spanish is a complicated language, not for its p
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In 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?"
NOTE: "muñecas" are not handcuffs, one "muñeca" it's a wrist! and handcuffs are placed around wrists... PR? where are you from? Are you studying spanish? how many time have you been studying it? It's curious, I think it's very normal to learn to speak english (because here is what we learn when we go to school as a foreign language), but it's strange to hear that somebody learns to speak spanish... well it's a pretty language. Even if I prefer Catalan... but Spanish is pretty...
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NOTE: "muñecas" are not handcuffs, one "muñeca" it's a wrist! and handcuffs are placed around wrists... PR? where are you from? Are you studying spanish? how many time have you been studying it? It's curious, I think it's very normal to learn to speak english (because here is what we learn when we go to school as a foreign language), but it's strange to hear that somebody learns to speak spanish... well it's a pretty language. Even if I prefer Catalan... but Spanish is pretty...
Joan Murt wrote: PR? PR = Puerto Rico Joan Murt wrote: muñecas" are not handcuffs, one "muñeca" it's a wrist! and handcuffs are placed around wrists... As I noted, the people on the island of PR are known for not speaking "correct" Spanish. I'm aware that munecas is not the correct term, but it's the term used in PR. "When in Rome...". It's the same with a ton of words there. Pantallas means earrings, but in PR it means a computer screen and on and on and on. As far as where I'm from, I was born in Turkey and raised throughout Europe. I also lived for 7 years in PR and even married a PR girl that didn't speak English - hence why I speak fluent spanish. 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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NOTE: "muñecas" are not handcuffs, one "muñeca" it's a wrist! and handcuffs are placed around wrists... PR? where are you from? Are you studying spanish? how many time have you been studying it? It's curious, I think it's very normal to learn to speak english (because here is what we learn when we go to school as a foreign language), but it's strange to hear that somebody learns to speak spanish... well it's a pretty language. Even if I prefer Catalan... but Spanish is pretty...
By the way, we also rarely pronounce the 's' at the end of a word. Drives the Venezuelans nuts! So in counting we slur the words like "uno, do', tre'...." 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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Joan Murt wrote: PR? PR = Puerto Rico Joan Murt wrote: muñecas" are not handcuffs, one "muñeca" it's a wrist! and handcuffs are placed around wrists... As I noted, the people on the island of PR are known for not speaking "correct" Spanish. I'm aware that munecas is not the correct term, but it's the term used in PR. "When in Rome...". It's the same with a ton of words there. Pantallas means earrings, but in PR it means a computer screen and on and on and on. As far as where I'm from, I was born in Turkey and raised throughout Europe. I also lived for 7 years in PR and even married a PR girl that didn't speak English - hence why I speak fluent spanish. 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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wow! what an interesting life have you had... My parents came to Puerto Rico two years ago in their 25th years together... They told me that is a pretty and warm place... Lucky you!
I just noticed your email address. My wife and I are planning on moving to Ibiza! I haven't been the Spanish mainland, but the island is paradise. 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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By the way, we also rarely pronounce the 's' at the end of a word. Drives the Venezuelans nuts! So in counting we slur the words like "uno, do', tre'...." 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?"
amazing! doing in this way you can get spanish even shorter! ;) just kidding... In catalonia we speak a correct spanish but the pronounciation is a little bit different because we speak always catalan... In fact, Spanish is the official language and all of us know how to speak it right... regards...
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I just noticed your email address. My wife and I are planning on moving to Ibiza! I haven't been the Spanish mainland, but the island is paradise. 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?"
Ibiza or Eivissa (How it's called in Catalan) is a pretty island, but has too much tourism in the summer, but if you don't mind that you can always stop at "Sant Antoni" (catalan) or San Antonio (spanish) that is a little village near the sea (of course). I went there in one of the end-course travels that organized my school. If you come, take a look at Barcelona it's one of the prettiest cities in Spain. They speak a little bit stranger than mainland catalans! they don't use "la", they use "sa" it's pretty, if you want to got to discos and pubs Ibiza is the right place to go; if you want more peace you should go to the other islands... If you need info on those try to find it on internet, if you can't, or you want to ask something, you can always send me a mail, I can try to find info for you (spare time only :() Regards!
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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'.
Maybe I should have mentioned it's a joke. ;P
Vikram. ----------------------------- My soon-to-be-updated site KI klike KDE kand kuse kit, kbut KI kmust kadmit, kstarting kall knames kwith K kis ksilly. KI khope kthey kwill kgive kup kthis kwhole kscheme ksoon kand kcome kup kwith kreal knames. pI vThink aHungarian nNotation vIs iA aWonderful nThing cAnd pEveryone avShould vUse pIt aAll dThe nTime, adNo nMatter pWhat dThe nContext, adEven adWhen vSpeaking. -
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+
Giles wrote: What other language can you swear every other word when your angrgy and still make a coherent sentence that people can understand. If you want I can give you an example of this in the soapbox. Email, please. Or the soapbox, if you insist. Just notify me. :-D
Vikram. ----------------------------- My soon-to-be-updated site KI klike KDE kand kuse kit, kbut KI kmust kadmit, kstarting kall knames kwith K kis ksilly. KI khope kthey kwill kgive kup kthis kwhole kscheme ksoon kand kcome kup kwith kreal knames. pI vThink aHungarian nNotation vIs iA aWonderful nThing cAnd pEveryone avShould vUse pIt aAll dThe nTime, adNo nMatter pWhat dThe nContext, adEven adWhen vSpeaking. -
You 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
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Zachery wrote: You just now noticed this? English is not a language to analize. Did you mean analyze or was that a joke? :laugh: Coming to the point, it (my post) is just a joke. Zachery wrote: George Carlin or Ghallager. Will do. :Still in splits about "analise":
Vikram. ----------------------------- My soon-to-be-updated site KI klike KDE kand kuse kit, kbut KI kmust kadmit, kstarting kall knames kwith K kis ksilly. KI khope kthey kwill kgive kup kthis kwhole kscheme ksoon kand kcome kup kwith kreal knames. pI vThink aHungarian nNotation vIs iA aWonderful nThing cAnd pEveryone avShould vUse pIt aAll dThe nTime, adNo nMatter pWhat dThe nContext, adEven adWhen vSpeaking.