Foo - English is Screwy

Stole this post from another forum: :)



The English Language ...

Everybody knows that the English Language has some strange quirks, some are listed below. it makes for interesting reading.

We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes; but the plural of ox became oxen not oxes.

One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese, yet the plural of moose should never be meese.

You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice; yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men, why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?

If I spoke of my foot and show you my feet, and I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?

If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth, why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?

We speak of a brother and also of brethren, but though we say mother, we never say methren.

Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him, but imagine the feminine, she, shis and shim.

Some reasons to be grateful if you grew up speaking English

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 and got his just deserts.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8) At the Army base, a bass was painted on the head of a 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 the boats in a 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 sowing, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) After a number of Novocain 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?
22) I spent last evening, evening out a pile of dirt.

Screwy pronunciations can mess up your mind! For example...

If you have a rough cough, climbing can be tough when going through the bough on a tree!

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.

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?

Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?

If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English 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 wiseguy 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.

Did you ever wonder Who and Why?

Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, "I think I'll squeeze these dangly things here, and drink whatever comes out?"

Who was the first person to say "See that chicken there... I'm gonna eat the next thing that comes outta it's butt."

Why is there a light in the fridge and not in the freezer?

If Jimmy cracks corn and no one cares, why is there a song about him?

Can a hearse carrying a corpse drive in the carpool lane?

If the professor on Gilligan's Island can make a radio out of coconut, why can't he fix a hole in a boat?

Why do people point to their wrist when asking for the time, but don't point to their crotch when they ask where the bathroom is?

Why does your OB-GYN leave the room when you get undressed if they are going to look up there anyway?

Why does Goofy stand erect while Pluto remains on all fours? They're both dogs!

What do you call male ballerinas?

Can blind people see their dreams? Do they dream?

If Wile E. Coyote had enough money to buy all that Acme crap, why didn't he just buy dinner?

If quizzes are quizzical, what are tests?

If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?

Is Disney World the only people trap operated by a mouse?

Why do the Alphabet song and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star have the same tune?

Do illiterate people get the full effect of Alphabet Soup?

Why do they call it an asteroid when it's outside the hemisphere, but call it a hemorrhoid when it's in your ------ ?

Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog's face, he gets mad at you, but when you take him on a car ride, he sticks his head out the window?

Does pushing the elevator button more than once make it arrive faster?

trying to mess me up?:lol:

I love speaking English :rolleyes:

trying to mess me up?:lol:
Monumental task, that one is. :rolleyes: :p

Don't forget the classic: Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo)

All makes perfect cents to me.

Don't forget the classic: Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo)

Oh my buffalo!

Monumental task, that one is. :rolleyes: :p
no... not true, I can actually joke quite well and do play on words even if this is not my language, you on the other hand, make a lot of common mistakes for someone so quick to point others errors in order to make yourself feel better :)
nice to see that we on the other hand, do not wish to give you this treatment and choose to give more respect.:)

OH MY GOD.....I think I want to work on my latin.....

no... not true, I can actually joke quite well and do play on words even if this is not my language, you on the other hand, make a lot of common mistakes for someone so quick to point others errors in order to make yourself feel better :)
nice to see that we on the other hand, do not wish to give you this treatment and choose to give more respect.:)
I don't this often....just to you (and actually only a couple of times). You are the one who's made a big deal about it and brings it up constantly.

You are always poking fun at me about it.....don't dish it out of you can't take it back.

no... not true, I can actually joke quite well and do play on words even if this is not my language, you on the other hand, make a lot of common mistakes for someone so quick to point others errors in order to make yourself feel better :)
nice to see that we on the other hand, do not wish to give you this treatment and choose to give more respect.:)
I think your mistakes are cute :D

I think your mistakes are cute :D

Me too! You're so cute, Fifique! ;)

I don't this often....just to you (and actually only a couple of times). You are the one who's made a big deal about it and brings it up constantly.

You are always poking fun at me about it.....don't dish it out of you can't take it back.
actually, I do think it's cute when im making mistakes too, thanks guys and the cutest thing is that Im well capable of laughing at myself too.

Now sorry KT but no, Im not the only one you do this to also, it's just that Im the one who has pointed out in public that it is sometimes inconsiderate of you to do so.

For example, you can start a thread where everyone is having a good time and you will come in and not add anything to the thread but just make a post pointing out someone's spelling errors in the most demeaning way and then leave the person to feel terrible.

Ive allready explained to you what it does to be humiliated in public about something so pittiful, i mean picking on someone's spellling who is trying so hard to spell in another language is just low, you said you got it and said you wouldnt do it again...
you have done it over and over after that fact.

so if you hurt someone out of now knowing any better, it's one thing, but after i explain to you what it does and you said you understood of my hurt feeling, then you now are doing it out of spite if you are awared of what it does to someone.
and by the way you just answered right there, you are very spiteful to me.
If you want to continue this discussion, you're welcome to do so via messages so that we dont have to make everyone go through this.

it's because English is the great scavenger of languages. we've got more loan-words than pretty much any other language. that tends to make for screwed up verbage.

And don't forget that all the examples you cite are actually correct usages of the language withoug any sort of slang thrown in. Once you start speaking the language--cutting and clipping phrases and creating new words the way--those of us comfortable with the language do, you give a non-native speaker an even bigger headache. My wife used to teach English as a second language, and I recall her trying to teach a class about the way that English speakers will run words together and that the same sound in one context might stand for something completely different in another. I gave her a great example to use from a Joe Ely song called "Musta Notta Gotta Lotta":

Please understand me, everything's all right,
I justa musta notta gotta lotta sleep last night.

Think how many words are dropped out of that sentence or blended with others, but it still makes sense to someone who grew up speaking English.

I love English. They print it on the other side of my kids' newsletter from school.

yeah...its the other language they have on all the signs around here...

I think bdg's english is perfectly fine, and I almost find it as attractive as shadiyah's belly dancing. Personally, I'm very proud that you make such an effort to write extremely thoughtful and passionate posts, even though you may spell something wrong, or grammatically may fumble a bit. I'm glad you don't let that get in the way of expressing yourself, because where would we be without you?

I wouldn't be blonde, I'll tell you that. :lol:

I think bdg's english is perfectly fine, and I almost find it as attractive as shadiyah's belly dancing. Personally, I'm very proud that you make such an effort to write extremely thoughtful and passionate posts, even though you may spell something wrong, or grammatically may fumble a bit. I'm glad you don't let that get in the way of expressing yourself, because where would we be without you?

I wouldn't be blonde, I'll tell you that. :lol:
:lol: well it is nice to be here too and nice to be able to be accepted for me and all my very little inperfections:p :lol: jk!!!!!!!!!

actually, I do think it's cute when im making mistakes too, thanks guys and the cutest thing is that Im well capable of laughing at myself too.

Now sorry KT but no, Im not the only one you do this to also, it's just that Im the one who has pointed out in public that it is sometimes inconsiderate of you to do so.

For example, you can start a thread where everyone is having a good time and you will come in and not add anything to the thread but just make a post pointing out someone's spelling errors in the most demeaning way and then leave the person to feel terrible.

Ive allready explained to you what it does to be humiliated in public about something so pittiful, i mean picking on someone's spellling who is trying so hard to spell in another language is just low, you said you got it and said you wouldnt do it again...
you have done it over and over after that fact.

so if you hurt someone out of now knowing any better, it's one thing, but after i explain to you what it does and you said you understood of my hurt feeling, then you now are doing it out of spite if you are awared of what it does to someone.
and by the way you just answered right there, you are very spiteful to me.
If you want to continue this discussion, you're welcome to do so via messages so that we dont have to make everyone go through this.


I agree we shouldn't involve everyone in this....so if you want to discuss, fine. PM coming.

:lol: well it is nice to be here too and nice to be able to be accepted for me and all my very little inperfections:p :lol: jk!!!!!!!!!
Imperfections are in the eye of the beholder, and I don't see none ;)

Man I'm a suck up :lol:

G. B. Shaw asserted that "fish" should be spelled "ghoti".

"gh" from "enough"
"o" from "women"
"ti" from "tradition"

Imperfections are in the eye of the beholder, and I don't see none ;)

Man I'm a suck up :lol:
ya gonna do it till the whip cracks! :lol: and it aint cracking!

I personally feel BDG has a better command of the English language than many people born in the US.

BDG...you rock!

ya gonna do it till the whip cracks! :lol: and it aint cracking!
Guess I'll have to keep trying.

I'm a persistent fellow ;) ;)

:lol: well it is nice to be here too and nice to be able to be accepted for me and all my very little inperfections:p :lol: jk!!!!!!!!!
BDG, if you were perfect, we'd have to nail you to a cross along with that other guy. :)

I don't this often....just to you (and actually only a couple of times). You are the one who's made a big deal about it and brings it up constantly.

You are always poking fun at me about it.....don't dish it out of you can't take it back.

Actually you've done this to other people including me. I don't really care because i assume that it's because of Napoleon syndrome or something similar.

English is the end result of hodgepodging many bits and pieces frmo many different launguages, all while maintaining a grammatical syntax that's far outdated.

This is why you can have such stuff as the buffalo buffalo buffalo thing. I've found some other oddities as well, but am only running on 3 hours of sleep, and have now pulled 30 hours of work in the past two days (and have another 3-4 to go)....my mind is like runny jello right now.

I personally feel BDG has a better command of the English language than many people born in the US.
Way to put down the Hispanophones...or wait, you meant English speaking? :)

Way to put down the Hispanophones...or wait, you meant English speaking? :)

English speaking.

According to my daughter. :)
English is the only language with a dificulty of 5, where Chinese and some others are level 4, and I think Spanish is level 1 or 2.
Don't quote "me" on this, quote her.
SI, yo hablo espanol un poco.
Steven

Did you ever wonder why the English dictionary is so huge? There is around 1 million words in the English language. We have more words than any other language.

I came up with this one as an example of the non-sense we have in the English language for my non-native speaking friends.

Please polish and pare the pair of Polish pears.

I came up with this one as an example of the non-sense we have in the English language for my non-native speaking friends.

Please polish and pare the pair of Polish pears.
:eek:

According to my daughter. :)
English is the only language with a dificulty of 5, where Chinese and some others are level 4, and I think Spanish is level 1 or 2.
Don't quote "me" on this, quote her.
SI, yo hablo espanol un poco.
Steven


It's funny because most of the people I know consider English to be an easy language to learn because of its simple grammar. You can speak English without knowing its rules for grammar but you can't really speak languages such as the Romance languages without knowing the grammar rules as well.

I'm considering learning German because the structure is similar to English, but they do have masculine, feminine and neuter nouns which English does not. The also have formal (Sie) and informal (Du) which English doesn't really have.


There is also the joke about the English tourist in the French cafe.
Tourist: 'Waiter, there's a fly in my soup.'
Waiter: 'M'sieur?'
Tourist: 'In my soup. A fly. Un mouche.'
Waiter: 'Une mouche, m'sieur. It's feminine.'
Tourist (peering): 'Blimey, you've got good eyesight.'

Did you ever wonder why the English dictionary is so huge? There is around 1 million words in the English language. We have more words than any other language.


A lot of them are technical and scientific words though. English has been the language spoken by a goodly number of the World's inventors over the last hundred or so years. You'll probably find a lot of these words are compound (ancient) Greek and Latin words.


Russian also has a large vocabulary and you'll find a lot of their words for modern inventions are the same as ours.

I'm considering learning German because the structure is similar to English, but they do have masculine, feminine and neuter nouns which English does not. The also have formal (Sie) and informal (Du) which English doesn't really have.

If you're familiar with the grammatical patterns of middle and early modern English, German grammar rules will make sense.


A lot of them are technical and scientific words though. English has been the language spoken by a goodly number of the World's inventors over the last hundred or so years. You'll probably find a lot of these words are compound (ancient) Greek and Latin words.

I love this about English. It's like a living organism - always growing and changing. Not that other languages don't grow and change, they just don't do it as quickly or as radically. I read somewhere if English had been as resistant to the adoption of new vocabulary and grammatical rules as many other languages, it would be something like today's Icelandic.

I love this about English. It's like a living organism - always growing and changing. Not that other languages don't grow and change, they just don't do it as quickly or as radically. I read somewhere if English had been as resistant to the adoption of new vocabulary and grammatical rules as many other languages, it would be something like today's Icelandic.


If you've read Melvyn Bragg's recent book on the subject you'll know that the dialect he spoke in his town in the north of England was mutually intelligible with (to?) Icelandic.

Shouldn't the plural of moose be meese?

even if this is not my language

What is your native language and where are you from?

G. B. Shaw asserted that "fish" should be spelled "ghoti".

"gh" from "enough"
"o" from "women"
"ti" from "tradition"
That's freaking brilliant

If you've read Melvyn Bragg's recent book on the subject you'll know that the dialect he spoke in his town in the north of England was mutually intelligible with (to?) Icelandic.
I brought that book recently but haven't got around to reading it. Is it a good read?

BTW, how was the trip?

I brought that book recently but haven't got around to reading it. Is it a good read?

BTW, how was the trip?


The book isn't bad. I remember seeing the TV series just before I left Oz.


The trip was wunderbar. Fussen was probably the best place we visited.

What is your native language and where are you from?

She's part of a nation within a Nation.

She's part of a nation within a Nation.
isnt it obvious that Im asian and speak turkish?
Im calling discrimation on that one!:lol:

isnt it obvious that Im asian and speak turkish?
Im calling discrimation on that one!:lol:


Wir kommen Sie? Quebec IIRC.

Wir kommen Sie? Quebec IIRC.
sí, tienes razón

The trip was wunderbar. Fussen was probably the best place we visited.

Excellent. Neuschwanstein is amazing. Did ya get to Bertchegarden?

I came up with this one as an example of the non-sense we have in the English language for my non-native speaking friends.

Please polish and pare the pair of Polish pears.

But please kind Ziemas. Why should anyone want to polish pears, Polish or otherwise? :)

Many words used in modern English have changed their meaning over the years:

Word............Original Meaning

awful............deserving of awe
brave............cowardice (as in bravado)
counterfeit.....legitimate copy
girl................young person of either sex
guess............take aim
knight............boy
luxury............sinful self indulgence
neck..............parcel of land (as in neck of the woods)
notorious........famous
nuisance.........injury, harm
quick..............alive (as in quicksilver)
sophisticated...corrupted
tell.................to count (as in bank teller)
truant.............beggar