This little treatise on the lovely language we share
is only for the brave. It will make you crazy, if you
think about it too long!
It was passed on by a linguist, the original author
unknown. Peruse at your leisure.
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?
Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is
no egg in eggplant nor is there 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.
P.S. Why doesn't "Buick" rhyme with "quick"?