Verbally insane… the English language!

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French Canadian living in Europe since 1989!
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Why Is The English Language is Hard To Learn
We must polish the Polish furniture.
He could lead if he would get the lead out.
The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
When shot and the dove dove into the bushes.
I did not object to the object.
The bandage was wound around the wound.
The farm was used to produce produce.
The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
They were too close to the door to close it.

ONLY THE ENGLISH COULD HAVE INVENTED THIS LANGUAGE
We'll begin with a box and the plural is boxes, but the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose but two are called geese, yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice. yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men, then shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet, and I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth, why shouldn't the plural of booth be called berth?
Then one may be that and three would be those, yet hat in the plural would never be hose, and the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him, but imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!

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 were not invented in England.
• Quicksand works slowly, boxing rings are square
• The 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?
• 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 folks who grew up speaking English
should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.
In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?
We ship by truck but send cargo by ship.
We have noses that run and feet that smell.
We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.
And 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
In which an alarm goes off by going on.
And in closing, if Father is Pop, how come Mother's not Mop?

I WOULD LIKE TO ADD THAT IF PEOPLE FROM POLAND ARE CALLED POLES
THEN PEOPLE FROM HOLLAND SHOULD BE HOLES AND
THE GERMANS, GERMS! …verbally insane.

***Please note that this post is summited by a French Canadian individual…
and that French speaking individual would be delighted to read some French
language insanities you may have found.
 
Agree the English language is a nightmare.. .. had a similar discussion with my 7yr old the other night when doing reading/homework
 
Yep, mad isn't it.

Here's the recipe:

A tiny pinch of Celtic.
A big dollop of mixed Latin and Greek.
A potful of German.
A sprinkle of assorted Scandinavian
Several spoons of French

Bring slowly to the boil
As it starts to solidify and printing starts to emerge, change all the vowels so spelling becomes random

Take it round the world adding words that appeal.

Once well messed up, give it to Americans to truly confuse the issue.
 
Perfectly reasonable, I bet the two of you would even have a problem understanding the game of cricket...

Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out.
When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out.
Sometimes you get men still in and not out.
When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who stay all out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out.
When both sides have been in and all the men have been out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game.
Click to expand...
 
The English language is easy to learn compared to most European languages. English has a single definite article. German has six, but you need a four by four table to work out which one of the six to use, dependent on the gender and case. Italian has a few too (il, lo, la, i, gli, le, l' ). English just has 'the'.

English has a single word for the second person subject pronoun, "you", we lost "thou" (second person singular informal) about four centuries ago. French has two, "tu" and "vous", Italian has three, "tu" (singular informal), "lei" (singular, formal) and "voi" (plural, can also be singular formal), but "lei" also means "she".

Then we get to the verbs. This is the present indicative:
English : I run, you run, he runs, we run, you (plural) run, they run. Only the third person singular changes from the infinitive form, by the addition of an s.
Italian : leggo, leggi, legge, leggiamo, leggete, leggono (in the present indicative and most other tenses apart from the subjunctive the subject pronoun can be omitted)

As for irregular verbs (teach - taught is an irregular past), there are far, far more in French and Italian, I don't remember enough German to say about that.

Having the same word mean different things depending on context is not unique to English.
 
Eggplant may be of the English language, but we can thank the yanks for that one.
I suspect aubergine was just too much for them.
(Along with words ending with "...our". ;) :lol:
 
I was speaking with some Polish people he other day and they have one word, pronounced and spelled the same for castle, zip and another word I have forgotten. Can be embarrassing for a guy to be told his castle is undone
 
ChasG said:
I was speaking with some Polish people he other day and they have one word, pronounced and spelled the same for castle, zip and another word I have forgotten. Can be embarrassing for a guy to be told his castle is undone
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Or dangerous to sack his zip! :eek:
 
Lob in the difference that the emphasized vowel can make in Greek... Tonos for example can mean tuna, tune, tone or indeed emphasis! As for their word for soft, be very careful!
 
Nod said:
Lob in the difference that the emphasized vowel can make in Greek... Tonos for example can mean tuna, tune, tone or indeed emphasis! As for their word for soft, be very careful!
Click to expand...

Ok i'll bite.. elaborate soft please :D
 
The Greek for soft is malaka, as is the Greek for self abuser. It's also a greeting between close male friends.
 
Jeeeezzzz. The bloody French (and derivatives thereof)!!:rolleyes:o_O
 
When general Wolf shouted charge. The French understood instantly and ran away.
 
The French have had so many civil wars because one day they might win one:D
 
and don't even mention cough, tough, plough, dough!
 
Kodiak, written English is bad enough, but when you add in the spoken language too & local dialect (which changes slightly approx every 6 miles or so) I can understand why foreign visitors struggle sometimes.

As Viv says, the yanks :rolleyes: It's aluminium. Grrrrrrr. :mad:
 
OldCarlos said:
As Viv says, the yanks :rolleyes: It's aluminium. Grrrrrrr. :mad:
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Although Humphry Davy originally called it Alumium then Aluminum when he first discovered it.
 
Cargo . Goods transported by ship & aircraft.

A stand (as in a football ground) ; Where you sit.

Flammable; Something that is easily ignited.
Inflammable; As above.

Sanction; To boycott AND to approve.

Finished; Completed, OR destroyed.
 
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