Whoever said English is easy, is completely wrong. There are many fun poems, scribbles and the like showing you the difficulties English can cause. I just couldn’t help but want to share the next piece of text when I received it in my inbox. I don’t know who made it, but this isn’t my text. Just passing it along! And remember: the next time anyone tells you English is easy, just refer them to this post. 😉
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You think English is easy??
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 sewerline. 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; 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.
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 wordUP 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 clearingUP.
When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes thingsUP. 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,
so……..it is time to shut UP!
Now it’s UP to you what you do with this email.
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7 responses to “English is easy?”
I’ve been wondering about this subject for a while. This is a great example of difficult it actually is.
I know a few more of these. I will post them in due time!
It’s much easier if you grew up with it, or grew up with English around you on TV and things. I gotta say, although I’m crap with other languages, I do feel sorry for those learning English as it is such a complex language.
However… I disagree with this one:
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
As it wouldn’t be does if it wasn’t plural.
Also some of the UP instances are easily explained, UP is higher and therefore there are a lot of things that simple mean a higher volume, better (higher) state. And we don’t say up as often any more in some cases. We’d just say call our friends for example.
Oh and ” If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?” because humanitarian isn’t in reference to what one eats.
and these two:
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
Are subjects of sarcasm. 🙂
I get your points hun, but thinking of some of my weaker students of English, these things really won’t make sense. They won’t know that does could be both a verb form and a female deer. They just see ‘does’ and immediately go for the thing they find easiest or know best, which would be the verb. Esp. when you first begin to learn English or when you are simply not good at it, these things are mind boggling.
So it’s up to us eh… Well, it’s often said, English is easy to learn, but hard to master. Along the lines of this blogpost I immediately thought of John O’Mill. This is probably his most famous poem.
‘A terrible infant called Peter,
sprinkled his bed with a geeter.
His father got woost,
took hold of a knoost
and gave him a pack on his meeter.’
U do know ‘I always get my sin’ Maarten Rijkers. A good read for every Dutchie that thinks he speaks English very well. 😉
I have BOTH I always get my sin books by Maarten rijkers! I see the difficulties English can cause on a daily basis. I have exams coming up again next week. May do a post on the brilliant, though awfully mistaken, language constructions I see when I come across enough.