This crazy language

May 21 06:06 UTC 2002

SO, YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE TOUGH ENOUGH TO TRY TO 
LEARN ENGLISH? 

This little treatise on the lovely language we share was passed on by a 
linguist. Peruse (to read through with thoroughness or care) at your 
leisure. 

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 could 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?" 

response 2 of 52:

May 21 13:54 UTC 2002

That linguist should be defrocked.  

response 6 of 52:

May 21 17:53 UTC 2002

It's also a county.

response 8 of 52:

May 21 23:14 UTC 2002

re #0: Context is everything.

response 10 of 52:

May 22 06:27 UTC 2002

Depends.  Which definitions were you using for the first and second ones? ;)

"Number" as in numeral has the B pronounced.  In "numb," as in not feeling,
the B is silent.  "Number," as in more numb, would also have a silent B if
it's a word.  I assume it is, but I can't remember ever hearing or using it.
The Bs in dumb, tomb, bomb (the second B), and all sorts of other words ending
in "mb" are also silent.

response 12 of 52:

May 22 09:38 UTC 2002

I've heard "nummer" or "nummers" as slang variants of nummy.

8/

response 14 of 52:

May 22 16:46 UTC 2002

I am MUMBY, Dammit! And there is my little horse POKEY ;)

response 16 of 52:

May 23 05:51 UTC 2002

Wouldn't that be a "numbor?"

response 18 of 52:

May 23 17:25 UTC 2002

I don't know.  I haven't seen it spelled, so I always assumed it was 
spelled "number."  I could certainly be wrong.

response 20 of 52:

May 23 22:29 UTC 2002

        S'what you get when you have a language invented in an island that's
conquered over and over again, sometimes by tribes with indo-european
languages, and sometimes not.

response 22 of 52:

May 24 03:21 UTC 2002

I don't think there's any good account of what was spoken in England
before the celts -- the problem with prehistoric peoples is that class
of information just isn't preserved.  Still - considering the curious
scraps left elsewhere (the basques, the finns), it would be surprising
if all the various prehistoric groups in england were PIE.  The groups
before the Celts certainly were quite a bit different in other ways
culturally.

I forget, what was the question?

response 24 of 52:

May 24 16:34 UTC 2002

Were the Picts Celts?