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If you ever feel stupid, then just read on. If you've learned to speak fluent English, you must be a genius! This little treatise on the lovely language we share is only for the brave. Pursue or peruse at your leisure, English lovers:
A few 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? 22) How can I look at the dew in the morning, when I have work to do and my bills are due, too? 23) The graduate is going to graduate today!
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger, apple or pine in pineapple nor grapes in Grape Nuts cereal. English Muffins weren't invented in England or French Fries in France (Surprise!). Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet at all, are meat. Quicksand works slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
Grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham, nor do people have when they are trying to behave? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, two geese. So one moose, two meese? 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? 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. P.S. - Why doesn't "Buick" rhyme with "quick"?
-------------------- Jane Diaz Diaz Sign Art 628 W. Lincoln Ave. Pontiac, Il. 61764 815-844-7024 www.diazsignart.com Posts: 4102 | From: Pontiac, IL USA | Registered: Feb 1999
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I don't know...it DOES sound like him, doesn't it? Someone emailed it to me this morning and I copied and pasted! ...just thought it was a good read.
-------------------- Jane Diaz Diaz Sign Art 628 W. Lincoln Ave. Pontiac, Il. 61764 815-844-7024 www.diazsignart.com Posts: 4102 | From: Pontiac, IL USA | Registered: Feb 1999
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My mind wanders. And that's not a good thing, 'cause it's too small to be out there alone. Posts: 3129 | From: Tooele, UT | Registered: Mar 2005
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Now that ya'll have mastered English werds it's time to learn how to write good.
How to Write Good
1.Avoid alliteration. Always. 2.Prepositions are not words to end sentences with. 3.Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.) 4.Employ the vernacular. 5.Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc. 6.Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary. 7.It is wrong to ever split an infinitive. 8.Contractions aren't necessary. 9.Foreign words and phrases are not apropos. 10.One should never generalize. 11.Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: ``I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.'' 12.Comparisons are as bad as cliches. 13.Don't be redundant; don't more use words than necessary; it's highly superfluous. 14.Profanity sucks. 15.Be more or less specific. 16.Understatement is always best. 17.Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement. 18.One-word sentences? Eliminate. 19.Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake. 20.The passive voice is to be avoided. 21.Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms. 22.Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed. 23.Who needs rhetorical questions?
-------------------- Jim Upchurch Artworks Olympia WA Posts: 797 | From: Olympia, WA | Registered: Nov 1998
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-------------------- Frank Magoo, Magoo's-Las Vegas; fmagoo@netzero.com "the only easy day was yesterday" Posts: 2365 | From: Las Vegas, Nv. | Registered: Jun 2003
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