You
Think English is Easy???
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. 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"
You lovers of the English language might enjoy this .
There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other
two-letter word, and that is "UP."
It's easy to understand
UP,
meaning
toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why
do we wake
UP
? At a meeting, why does a topic come
UP?
Why do we speak UP
and
why are the officers
UP
for
election and why is it
UP
to
the
secretary
to
write
UP
a
report
?
We call
UP
our
friends. And we use it to brighten
UP
a
room, polish UP
the
silver; warm
UP
the leftovers and clean
UP
the
kitchen. We lock
UP
the
house and some guys fix
UP
the
old car.
At
other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir
UP
trouble,
line
UP
for
tickets, work
UP
an
appetite, and think
UP
excuses. To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed UP
is special.
And this
UP
is confusing: A drain must be opened
UP
because it is stopped UP
. We
open
UP
a store in the morning but we close it
UP
at night.
We seem to be pretty mixed UP
about
UP!
To
be knowledgeable about the proper uses of
UP,
look the word UP
in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP
almost 1/4th of the page and can add
UP
to about thirty definitions. If you are UP
to it, you might try building
UP
a list of the many ways
UP
is
used.
It will take
UP
a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP,
you
may wind
UP
with a hundred or more. When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding
UP.
When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP.
When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP.
When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry UP.
We could go on, but I'll wrap it UP
, for
now my time is UP,
so... Time to shut
UP.!
Oh... one more thing:
What
is the first thing you do in the morning & the last thing you do at night? U-P