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I just found this in my Inbox, and given the international nature of SYM and its periodic debates on language, I figured it would be fun to post

If you ever feel stupid, then just read on. If you've learned to speak fluent English, you must be a genius! This little treatise on the lovely language we share is only for the brave. Peruse at your leisure, English lovers.



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?



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 bread or sweet, are meat.



Quicksand works 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? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? Is it an odd, or an end?



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.

LMAO!!! Good god.I love that. I had to re-read sentences atleast twice to figure out what was going on. That is great. Must print out.

Thats awesome and oh so true. I'm amazed at the fact I can learn English but not other languages.

lol

[Quote=Mag]Thats awesome and oh so true. I'm amazed at the fact I can learn English but not other languages.[/quote]
That's natural, if you think about it. English has no logic in it, how could you learn a language based on strict and clear logic, then?

As a side note: English is actually a pretty easy language.
Very funny indeed.

[QUOTE=Rob-hin]As a side note: English is actually a pretty easy language.
[/QUOTE]
It is, compared to others like German or Hungarian...

[QUOTE=Brynn]It is, compared to others like German or Hungarian...[/QUOTE]

I'd say, when I did my report about Hungary, I couldn't make heads or tailes from it!
It looks very cool though.

Some are very funny indeed, but I guess there are examples like this is every language.

This brings back nightmares of when I was teaching ESL students. At one point a student asked for an explanation as to why a certain word was the way it was, I yelled "Because I said so." Sigh.

Ah, very didactic and tactful, WR.

Not to mentioned elightening for the student You should have told him that us Englanders made are langage this way specifically to confuse people like him

ik -- I was having one of those days when I wanted to murder somebody. Trust me teaching ESL students has got to be the most difficult task I can think of at the moment. Most often I would give those half hour explanations which at the end STILL resulted in a confused look from the student!

giles-- I guess it goes without saying that you cant teach unless you have buckets of patience.

That's why I gave up on my plans of becoming a teacher.

That, and the fact that the more time I spend in university, the more I dislike education. As can be seen in my marks.

^ But then having helped a student get accepted into college is worth it. Plus theres so much to teaching then just the class work.

There is no egg in eggplant

OED]Eggplant (n): A popular name for the [i]Solanum esculentum[/i] wrote:

nor ham in hamburger

OED]Hamburger (n) (Now freq. with lower-case initial.) In full [b][i]Hamburger steak[/b][/i] = [i]Hamburg steak[/i] (see STEAK 2c); also wrote:hamburger bar[/i], etc. orig. U.S.

neither apple nor pine in pineapple

OED]Pineapple (n) 2. a. The juicy edible fruit of the Ananas wrote:Ananassa sativa[/i], a large collective fruit developed from a conical spike of flowers, and surmounted by a crown of small leaves; so called from its resemblance to a pine-cone.

Sweetmeats are candies

OED]Sweetmeats (n) 1. collect. pl. (and sing.) Sweet food wrote:

while sweetbreads, which aren't bread or sweet, are meat

OED]Sweet (adj) 1. a. Pleasing to the sense of taste; having a pleasant taste or flavour. Bread (n) I. 1. (Only in OE.) Bit wrote:
There's a reason for everything.

How very true - English is a horrible language.

Just as an additional note, fraud and defraud mean the same thing, as do flammable and inflammable!

this thread is making my head hurt

close your eyes and wander into the happy place grimey

yeah it's strange that although english has so many ridiculous things it's soooo easy to learn.. for instance i will never understand swedish, i've tried, i live in a place where usually ppl talk swedish, i've studied it from the 4th grade and i still suck in it.. must be me

No, English is a relatively easy language to learn in its basics, and very hard to learn in any advanced fashion. Its rules are simple. The problem is the large number of exception to its rules.

Why the exceptions? First, because unlike many European languages, English is a clash of two major linguistic cultures: proto-Germanic (via the Danes, Angles, Saxons), and proto-Romance (via the French). Its grammatical structure is largely Romance, but its verb conjugations, tenses, etc, are largely Germanic. So a word carried into English from Latin could end up being treated in a Germanic fashion, and vice versa. Multiply this with other, smaller linguistic sub-groups.

Second, this same rule works down at the level of phonemes and quasi-phonemes (what we might call the atoms of speech sound). That's why some identically visual words can "flip" between two different sounds, and two different meanings: Polish and polish, for example.

Third, English is so widespread that invariably it breaks up into major divisons, regionalisms, idioms and jargons that barely resemble one another. That's how "flammable" and "inflammable" evolved, but also explains why Texans who yell out to friends, "Come back!" don't mean you should turn around and return, but that you're invited back at your convenience.

Fourth, the US was and remains a vast mix of culturally distinct groups. Each added over time its own individual set of words to English. But when these words escaped into the general culture, divorced from their points of origin, they frequently lost context. One theory is that Hamburger almost certainly referred to beef manufacturing in the German city of the same name; and that makes sense. But in English, "ham" means pork (and at one time, more generally, the butt of any animal, including humans; in pigs, this was the source of ham), while it doesn't have that meaning in German. You can just see the wonderful opportunities for confusion, there.

Fifth, languages rarely shift as fast as the cultures that made them change; and the larger the area covered, it seems, the slower the language shifts. Meat was the main course of a meal in Renaissance England, so sweetmeats were true sweets, rich and heavy that would last a long time, a true course in themselves--the meat (center, main course) of one's dessert.

Sixth, English is the bad boy that gets blamed for everything. Other languages have their problems, but English irregularity (irregularity in the language; not in the digestive system of those speaking it) is proverbial. Consequently, people notice it more than in, say, Spanish or Swedish. Still, how many of us have learned even one of the two Japanese written systems? Or all the verb forms in German? I suspect if English wasn't so simple to learn on the surface, luring you into a quagmire of problems, its reputation wouldn't be so poor. All the more reason to respect people who take the time to learn it well, and to learn their languages, in turn, so you can eavesdrop when they complain to one another about how awful English is.

On another forum, I found fun and joy. Enjoy.

English in Non-English Speaking Countries!

Examples of how English is being used in different parts of the world:
In a Tokyo Hotel: Is forbitten to steal hotel towels please. If you are not person to do such thing is please not to read notis.
In another Japanese hotel room: Please to bathe inside the tub.
In a Bucharest hotel lobby: The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable.
In a Leipzig elevator: Do not enter the lift backwards, and only when lit up.
In a Belgrade hotel elevator: To move the cabin, push button for wishing floor. If the cabin should enter more persons, each one should press a number of wishing floor. Driving is then going alphabetically by national order.
In a Paris hotel elevator: Please leave your values at the front desk.
In a hotel in Athens: Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the hours of 9 and 11 A.M. daily.
In a Yugoslavian hotel: The flattening of underwear with pleasure is the job of the chambermaid.
In a Japanese hotel: You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid.
In the lobby of a Moscow hotel across from a Russian Orthodox monastery: You are welcome to visit the cemetery where famous Russian and Soviet composers, artists, and writers are buried daily except Thursday.
In an Austrian hotel catering to skiers: Not to perambulate the corridors in the hours of repose in the boots of ascension.
On the menu of a Swiss restaurant: Our wines leave you nothing to hope for.
On the menu of a Polish hotel: Salad a firm's own make; limpid red beet soup with cheesy dumplings in the form of a finger; roasted duck let loose; beef rashers beaten up in the country people's fashion.
In a Hong Kong supermarket: For your convenience, we recommend courteous, efficient self-service.
Outside a Hong Kong tailor shop: Ladies may have a fit upstairs.
In a Rhodes tailor shop: Order your summers suit. Because is big rush we will execute customers in strict rotation.
Similarly, from the Soviet Weekly: There will be a Moscow Exhibition of Arts by 15,000 Soviet Republic painters and sculptors. These were executed over the past two years.
In an East African newspaper: A new swimming pool is rapidly taking shape since the contractors have thrown in the bulk of their workers.
In a Vienna hotel: In case of fire, do your utmost to alarm the hotel porter.
A sign posted in Germany's Black Forest: It is strictly forbidden on our black forest camping site that people of different sex, for instance, men and women, live together in one tent unless they are married with each other for that purpose.
In a Zurich hotel: Because of the impropriety of entertaining guests of the opposite sex in the bedroom, it is suggested that the lobby be used for this purpose.
In an advertisement by a Hong Kong dentist: Teeth extracted by the latest Methodists.
A translated sentence from a Russian chess book: A lot of water has been passed under the bridge since this variation has been played.
In a Rome laundry: Ladies, leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time.
In a Czechoslovakian tourist agency: Take one of our horse-driven city tours -- we guarantee no miscarriages.
Advertisement for donkey rides in Thailand: Would you like to ride on your own ass?
On the faucet in a Finnish washroom: To stop the drip, turn **** to right.
In the window of a Swedish furrier: Fur coats made for ladies from their own skin.
On the box of a clockwork toy made in Hong Kong: Guaranteed to work throughout its useful life.
Detour sign in Kyushi, Japan: Stop: Drive Sideways.
In a Swiss mountain inn: Special today -- no ice cream.
In a Bangkok temple: It is forbidden to enter a woman even a foreigner if dressed as a man.
In a Tokyo bar: Special ****tails for the ladies with nuts.
In a Copenhagen airline ticket office: We take your bags and send them in all directions.
On the door of a Moscow hotel room: If this is your first visit to the USSR, you are welcome to it.
In a Norwegian ****tail lounge: Ladies are requested not to have children in the bar.
At a Budapest zoo: Please do not feed the animals. If you have any suitable food, give it to the guard on duty.
In the office of a Roman doctor: Specialist in women and other diseases.
In an Acapulco hotel: The manager has personally passed all the water served here.
In a Tokyo shop: Our nylons cost more than common, but you'll find they are best in the long run.
From a Japanese information booklet about using a hotel air conditioner: Cooles and Heates: If you want just condition of warm in your room, please control yourself.
From a brochure of a car rental firm in Tokyo: When passenger of foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage then tootle him with vigor.
Two signs from a Majorcan shop entrance:
- English well talking.
- Here speeching American.