Is the English language difficult to learn ?

[C1ay]

A few of the reasons why the English language is so difficult 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 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"?

 

Have you any food for thought? :hihi:

[infamous]

I really liked #14 but I would like to change it just a little:

 

The buck does funny things when the does are present, that's why the buck stopped here.

[Eclogite]

I was reminded of the story of a student who lwas iving in London in order to attend an English course. He had spent the day wrestling with the diverse ways of pronouncing 'ough'. Though, thought, through, bough, cough, etc. As he walked home through the theatre district his eyes fell on a poster outside a ticket office.

It read, 'Hamlet: pronounced success."

He went home and hung himself.

[rockytriton]

Can't be any worse than Chinese, where in Mandarin the phrase "ma ma ma ma" means "did mother scold the horse?", though different speaking tones are used for each 'ma'.

[Dark Mind]

I was reminded of the story of a student who lwas iving in London in order to attend an English course. He had spent the day wrestling with the diverse ways of pronouncing 'ough'. Though, thought, through, bough, cough, etc. As he walked home through the theatre district his eyes fell on a poster outside a ticket office.

It read, 'Hamlet: pronounced success."

He went home and hung himself.

:)

 

Could you provide a link to that story? :evil:

 

Kind of humorous in that messed up, human sort of way :hihi:.

[Dark Mind]

Can't be any worse than Chinese, where in Mandarin the phrase "ma ma ma ma" means "did mother scold the horse?", though different speaking tones are used for each 'ma'.

Oh great and powerful knower of useless things...:hihi:

 

Could you, through text, describe how each "ma" is intonated? :evil:

[rockytriton]

Oh great and powerful knower of useless things...:eek2:

 

Could you, through text, describe how each "ma" is intonated? :)

 

yes, there is a neutral tone, which is just pronounced normally, like "ma". Then there is a high level tone which is pronounced at a higher level, say.. "MA", there is a rising tone which starts low and then ends up high, there is a falling tone which starts out high and ends low, there is also a tone that starts high, dips low and rises to a high tone again. For that tone, imagine someone saying "huh???" you know how the tone dips, well, that's what it's kinda like.

[Qfwfq]

Why doesn't "buick" rhyme with "quick"?

If it did, people might think it was a cartoon character saying 'brick'. :eek2:

[Dark Mind]

yes, there is a neutral tone, which is just pronounced normally, like "ma". Then there is a high level tone which is pronounced at a higher level, say.. "MA", there is a rising tone which starts low and then ends up high, there is a falling tone which starts out high and ends low, there is also a tone that starts high, dips low and rises to a high tone again. For that tone, imagine someone saying "huh???" you know how the tone dips, well, that's what it's kinda like.

I'm sure if you all could hear me try to say this quick your faces would look like this: :eek2:.

 

:)

[rockytriton]

yea it's hard for me to say quick too, and I can speak mandarin. well, not fluently, but well enough to get by in a conversation.

[Tormod]

Have you any food for thought? :eek2:

 

No. There's no room in the room. :)

 

English is great!

[C1ay]

English is great!

Do you all have parkways over in Norway?. Over here we drive on the parkway and then park in the driveway.

[Dark Mind]

Just a point of curiousity, C1ay... Are you a member of Mensa or something :eek2:? This seems like the type of "puzzle" people from Mensa would work on :).

[C1ay]

Just a point of curiousity, C1ay... Are you a member of Mensa or something :eek2:? This seems like the type of "puzzle" people from Mensa would work on :).

Nope. I just read a lot.

[Dark Mind]

I think anyone with over 500 posts here "reads a lot" ;).

 

I guess you just type a lot too :). I would never have found the time (in one sitting :D) to type out that first post :eek2:.

[rockytriton]

I actually got an email from my cousin about a week before this post came out, so I'm assuming that's where he got it too. Well, maybe not from my cousin, but it's a standard email chain thing.

[Dark Mind]

Ohhhhhh. I don't think C1ay would be the type to plagiarize though... Maybe he just posted what he remembered of something he saw that was similar :eek2:.