You Think English is Easy??

[M.D. Holloway]

You think English is easy??


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. 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.


PS. - Why doesn't 'Buick' rhyme with 'quick' ?

[GH85Carrera]

I wonder what percentage of new high school graduates could understand and appreciate that.

[svandamme]

English is easy, try Dutch/German or if you really like a challenge : Hungarian or Finnish.

[Mo_Gearhead]

Cents sum of us have senior previous postings, eye think bye posting that, ewe are trying two confuse us?

[livi]

English?

Piece of cake.

[red-beard]

I was complaining about some of the Romanian with the changes in the sound of "c" when it is followed by different vowels. As I thought about it, in english, the sound of a vowel is not just changed by letters immediately next to it, but by letters that are 2 down from it! And at least the Romanian followed a pattern distinct pattern, along with all of the Romance languages, except maybe French.

Nope, It is much easier to learn english as a native...

[Dottore]

Originally Posted by svandamme

Hungarian or Finnish.

Those are more than languages. They are states of mind.

[red-beard]

The Tough Coughs As He Ploughs the Dough | Reading Copy Book Blog

The Tough Coughs as he Plough the Dough. This is a collection of essays by "Dr. Seuss" before he started doing childrens books.

Oh, English. I’m so glad I learned to speak you when I was just an innocent tot, when my brain was a thirsty sponge, eager to absorb anything poured into it. I feel for people who try to learn English as adults. Woe betide them! English is as nonsensical and contradictory as anything in Whoville. Ting-tanglers indeed.

To illustrate, please have a read – aloud, if you dare – of this poem by Dr. Seuss, and note the entire lack of fanciful, make-believe words (this would make a great gift for the word nerd in your life. I know, because I want it!):

Dearest creature in creation, study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy, make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear. So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word, sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you with such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery, daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles, exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar, solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral, kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind, scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet, bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food, nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad, toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK when you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve, friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour and enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb, doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger, neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt, font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does.
Now first say finger, and then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very, nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little, we say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate; dull, bull, and George ate late.

Scenic, Arabic, Pacific, science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven, rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed, people, leopard, towed, but vowed.

Mark the differences, moreover, between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise, chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable, principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal, wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair, senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.

Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area, psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian, dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye, eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever, neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even, hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk, ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation — think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits, writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight, housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough –
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to just give up!!!

[Rick Lee]

Magyar and Finnish are two of the world's toughest languages. I met a girl in Germany last trip who had been an exchange student in Finland because of the challenge of the language. Very brave. I find German to be a cinch. Russian is where it's at.

[Dottore]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

Russian is where it's at.

Yes. And there are almost 150 million reasons for learning it.

[krystar]

i don't see how an anglo germanic langauge can be more difficult than chinese/korean/japanese/arabic

[Rick Lee]

Depends on what you grew up learning. There is just about no grammar in Mandarin, but German is nothing but grammar. English is somewhere in between.

[Rikao4]

agree with Rick on this..
the difficult part for me ..
while learning English...
'you do this or that..'
except.
and those silent letters are a killer..

Rika

[jago]

r u crzy? nglish izz ez!

[sammyg2]

Irregardless*, English is made up of words from too many other languages from all over the world and the hodgepodge got all screwed up.

So much for diversity being a good thing







* I love using that word, it really tees off the nannies.

[speeder]

There are certainly a lot of posters here who demonstrate the difficulty of the english language on a regular basis.

[pwd72s]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

I wonder what percentage of new high school graduates could understand and appreciate that.

Good thought.

[cmccuist]

I'm finding Arabic to be a real challenge. I'm not learning it by using alliteration. Rather by learning the Arabic alphabet and the sounds. There are so many sounds in Arabic that we don't have in English. It's really going slowly. It's a very difficult language for English speakers.