English Language!

[Beau]

This was sent to me by a friend so thought I would share it with you lot as it made me smile. Apologies to those for whom English is not your first language!

 

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?

 

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.

Quicksand works 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?

If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them,

what do you call it? Is it an odd, or an end?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?

If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?

Ship by truck and send cargo by ship?

Have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a

wise guy are opposites?

 

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house

can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it

out, and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the

creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That

is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are

out, they are invisible.

[Susan]

That was a bit heavy going for a Saturday morning, Carol! and one at the end of a holiday!!

[Guest]

Brilliant Carol!! It's like trying to explain a game of cricket-in when you're out and out when you're in etc!!

I always say that we expect so much of young children and people who don't speak English in their ability to read and write and speak it!!! I am going to print that out and put it on the notice board at pre-school so that when parents are complaining about their child's lack of reading skills I can point it out to them.

Linda

[Guest]

Fabulous! I've always said English was a rediculous language!

I have a gifted child in my reception part of my class and she is reading well beyond her years and trying to explain some silly words to her I've just had to tell her that you have to read the rest of the sentence to decide on how you say it and that English is a silly language with lots of tricky words to confuse you!

This week she read all the words for Y4 and 5 from the NLS except during, which I didn't think was bad going at all!!!

[Guest]

Great Carol!

 

On my pilgrimage to Ikea there's a sign saying Polish War Memorial. I'm never sure whether its a direction or an instruction (and whether there's any difference!).

 

English is a ridiculous language - and don't even get me started on greengrocer's apostrophes!

 

Maz

[Guest]

Love it!

 

A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife book and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says, at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black and white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

 

I'm a bit of a stickler when it comes to punctuation. For any other sticklers out there, read 'Eats, shoots and leaves' by Lynne Truss. Great book.

[Rea]

Beau that was brilliant. I've recently read Bill Bryson's book ' Mother Tongue'. On page one he says 'Any language where the unassuming word fly signifies an annoying insect, a means of travel and a critical part of a gentleman's apparel is clearly asking to be mangled'. He goes on in another chapter to say 'If there is one thing certain about English pronunciation it is that there is almost nothing certain about it. No other language in the world has more words spelled the same way and yet pronounced differently. Consider just a few.

heard - beard

road - broad

five - give

early - dearly

beau - beauty

steak - streak

ache - moustache

low - how

doll - droll

scour - flour

grieve - sieve

paid - said

break - speak

 

 

How do we ever learn it??

[Rea]

Something else about reading that I found on the TES site.

 

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg.

 

The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? Yaeh and I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt!

 

[Guest]

That is amazing Rea! I actually read that without any problem-so it just shows that once you have the ability to read then you can suss out what is written even if it is badly misspelt.

Linda

[Guest]

Even I read it all !

Can you imagin how is for me, especially now when STEVE not giving back my spell-check?

In Serbo-Croat Language ( my first language) the thing is you write how you read and read how you hear and is so simple. No spelling like in English.

I hope I am not to bad

[Guest]

Well Kit-kat

 

Perhaps the question should be to ask how many of us with English as a first language could post in Serbo-croat and make ourselves understood!

 

I speak two languages - English and gibberish.

 

You are doing just fine!

 

Maz

[Guest]

Not too bad at all Kit-kat-and certainly better than my Serbo-Croat which is non existent!!!

LInda

[Guest]

Here's a teaser:

 

it was and I said not but

 

All you have to do is put punctuation in the above sentence to make it make sense. Shouldn't be a problem for you leedwa!

 

Maz

[Rea]

it was, and I said 'not...

 

...it was' and, I said 'not...

 

Punctuation was never my strong point

[Guest]

"It was and" I said "not but." ??????????????????

Linda

[Rea]

obviously reading isnt a strong point either, I forgot the 'but'

[Guest]

Nice one Rea, but does it only work for words with more than 3 letters. Hi, Kot-Ket, ( yes we still read and understand 3 letter words) your language is fine, it's WHAT you say that counts, and it counts to us what you have to say.

 

Peggy

[Guest]

Hi Mazlittle

 

Please tell me the correct way to punctuate the sentence:

 

it was and I said not but

 

I came up with "It was." And I said, "Not, but..."

Although a traditional grammarian (or my old English teacher) would say never start a sentence with the word 'and'.

 

Found a website with a punctuation test - I'm a 92% stickler. Never understood punctuation at primary school though- it just got in the way of the actual story writing.

Give it a try here

 

What about this one, punctuate it differently to get different meanings (it's from the book 'Eats, Shoots and Leaves'.

 

a woman without her man is nothing

[Guest]

Leedwa, here goes:-

 

It was 'and' I said, not 'but'.

 

Am off to look at the website. My friend bought me "Eats shoots and leaves" for my birthday because I'm always ranting about poorly punctuated signs, or badly phrased newspaper articles.

 

I also love spelling mistakes (I'm very good at seeing other people's but not necessarily my own!).

 

I love the one (referring to anti-theft measures) which says "Door alarmed" to which some wag adds "Window slightly worried".

 

Maz

[Guest]

Oh dear! Oh dear!

 

I'm a 100% stickler. Now that is sad!

 

Maz

[Gezabel]

Does anyone remember an article that was fairly long and 'misused' words but they were all words in the English language. As they were all spelt correctly the spellchecker on the PC did not pick any of them up.

 

It was very clever and I am sure someone posted it here somewhere but I cant find it!!!

[Guest doohanok5]

Is this the one you mean Geraldine?

 

Eye halve a spelling chequer

It came with my pea sea

It plainly marques four my revue

Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

 

Eye strike a quay and type a word

And weight four it two say

Weather eye am wrong oar write

It shows me strait a weigh.

 

As soon as a mist ache is made

It nose bee fore two long

And eye can put the error rite

Its rare lea ever wrong.

 

Eye have run this poem threw it

I am shore your pleased two no

Its letter perfect awl the weigh

My chequer tolled me sew.

 

 

Happy birthday by the way

[Rea]

Thats very clever and another one for the notice board

[Gezabel]

Ohhh!! THANK YOU!!!

 

[Guest]

Something else about reading that I found on the TES site.

 

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg.

 

The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? Yaeh and I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt!

 

   

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We looked at this on a course about emergent writers and we were talking about how children learn to read and write. It was really interesting. We also did one where the whole text had each word written back to front and you had to read it outloud. Facinating isn't it?! I'm currently in the middle of doing phonic checks with my kids and some of them are great at it, even some really tricky ones. Others just don't have a clue but when you look at the English language it's hardly surprising is it?!