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from my southern gal pal!
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, June 27, 2005 9:48 AM
Subject: [CONTENT] Fwd: FW: The English Language
This is really interesting, and so RIGHT!
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?
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"?
Candy Roberts, ABR, GRI,
RCE
Executive Vice President
Middle Tennessee Association of
REALTORS
Murfreesboro, TN 37127
http://mtar.org
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
615-893-2242 / fax
615-893-2250
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