Oh my goodness!!! To think we take it for granted!!
You Think English is Easy???
Can you read these correctly out loud 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) 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?
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, we 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. I f 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 .
One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP , for now my
time is UP.
CAclubindia
