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?" 

52 responses total.

why doesn't Detroit rhyme with Gratoit?

That linguist should be defrocked.  

These are mostly complaints with English spelling, really.  As far as that
goes, I agree.  We've needed a new spelling system for a few hundred years
now.

This response has been erased.

Ummmm, I don't know what Gratoit is, 
but Gratiot is a main road on the east side of 
the Detroit metro area.

It's also a county.

re: guinea pigs are not pigs - for a contrary opinion, see the classic
short story "pigs is pigs" written circa early 1900s but not largely
forgotten.

re #0: Context is everything.

Pronuniation another.
It can be hard for us foreigners.
I didn't even know there was a difference between number and number.
Do you leave out the 'b'when you pronounce the second one?

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.

I rarely hear "number" used in relation to pain.  I'd probably say "more
numb", though that may not be correct.  "Number" just sounds silly.  :)  It's
too close to nummy, which is a cutesy way of describing how food tastes.

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

8/

Slang variant of mummy is mumby? (hee hee hee)

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

<cheers> Yay, slynne!

I've hear "number" used to decribed an agent used to deaden or "numb" 
something to pain.

Wouldn't that be a "numbor?"

Numbeer (aaah, nummbeeer, rrrrrr) (drool)

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

Numb and Number

        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.

When was a non-indo-european language spoken in England?  The Celtic and
Germanic peoples, the Romans, and the French all spoke indo-european ones.
Who am I missing?

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?

There were people in England before the Celts; Stone Age people 
generally called the Mound People.  I don't imagine the Celts (and 
Angles and Jutes) mixed in much with them; I think they pretty much 
just killed them off or pushed them further west, eventually to 
Ireland.  I don't think much of the Mound People language survives.  
Anyway, their language was non-Indo-European.

Were the Picts Celts?

Usually the last scrap of a vanished people (even if vanquished by war)
is their place names.  People can be so unimaginative, sometimes.

Whups, right.  Picts, Jutes and Angles were all Celtic.  And the 
Saxons, Frisians, Franks, I imagine there were others, too.  They were 
all descendants of non-Roman Europeans who invaded (or immigrated to) 
England at one time or another.

They were all invaders/immigrants, but the Saxons & Frisians, and I
think the Franks (although didn't they become Normans first?) were all
Germanic (another branch of PIE) not Celtic.

As I understand it, the Latin "Celtic" meant about the same 
as "Barbarian"; it meant anyone in Europe who wasn't Roman.  I'm not 
positive, but I think all of the Germanic tribes were considered Celts 
as well.  I looked around on the WWW a little and was unable to find a 
good definitive explanation of just who were, and who were not, Celts.

At least in modern usage, Celts means the PIE group that was in most of
western europe before the romans & germans got there.  The continental
ones mainly left place names and legends behind.  The british ones
survived long enough to leave last names and a few "living" languages to
the present day.  These are associated with ireland, wales, & scotland
(although the celts now associated with scotland are a later branch of
immigrants from ireland.  The original scottish celts, the picts are now
gone.  The picts were a branch of the another vanished group of celts,
the britons.) The celts apparently wandered further than this.
Causcasian mummies with red hair, and dressed in plaid cloth have been
found in China, much to the consternation of modern authorities.  Some
more about celts is here:
 http://www.kiyai.com/ogygia.htm
this speaks of "celtic neanderthals", but note it's in the legends section.

   "We are all Britons, and I am your king."  :)

    "I thought we were an autonomous collective"

Not gonna say it...

The later british weren't really celts anymore...too many latin lovers.

If you can't understand Kant, take your wok for a walk.

Re #34:  You're too Jung to understand that joke.

Oh, no . . . Russ, you didn't . . .

He did.  He should be Skinner-ed for that.

I'm afreud I have to agree with void on this one

   Who Kinsey they saw this coming?

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss