Saturday, November 24, 2007


Hi, received this as an email, as a teacher it appealed to me, and I thought that all of the non-English speaking bloggers may appreciate a read....or is that a read! Not really fair is it, my theory is that the English language was obviously designed by a man...who said to his wife when she bought up the anomallies..."oh but they will just know the difference''!!
I still have it in easy to print email form so if any teachers want a copy, please drop me a line.


Subject: THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE - BRILLIANT & A MUST READ

This is absolutely BRILLIANT.

For those who speak English well, you will find it amusing.
For those who don't, then this is an eye-opener.

____________


English

Can you read these right the first time?
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) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.


19) I had to
subject
the subject to a series of tests.

20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?



Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.


9 comments:

  1. Good ones, Tracey. It really is a tough language to learn. Makes me glad it's my *first* language!

    ReplyDelete
  2. LOL...I've actually seen a version of this one before. Of course, you could do what those of us who have studied Old English (honestly -- has more in common with antique versions of German than with what we speak today) do -- blame the French and the Romans! :0) (ok, so maybe that's not funny to most people -- but trust me, it is!)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Tracey, you have totally just done my head in. I think I may need to lie down.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Have you read Anguished English by Richard Lederer? Lots of fun with grammar and mispellings. I thought this essay might be from the book, but I guess I've read it elsewhere.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ever try teaching English as a second language??? There are no answers to most of the why??? questions. No wonder I have trouble with spelling.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Oh then there's punctuation . . . have you seen the book - Eats, Shoots and Leaves? I just love this kind of stuff *s*

    ReplyDelete
  7. LOL..my 13 year old and I have had a good time reading all that...she had to correct my pronunciation more than once...as it should be as she's still at school and all!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Fun!! and true, English is tough to learn as a second language for my friends doing this now.

    Have a wonderful day!!

    JulieQ

    ReplyDelete
  9. I messed up #4 and #15 (of all the ones to mess up!!)

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for finding the time to comment, I'll try hard to get back to you!! Sorry, have had to add word verification step due to comment spam!