Saturday, December 01, 2007

Language...ugg

My father in law forwarded this list to me:

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?

And for one very special reader I must add:
22. She feared she would lose the loose change.

There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England, or frenchfries in France (surprise!). Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads,which aren't sweet, are meat. Quicksand works slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea or 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 it is louse/lice and mouce/mice, why can't you eat your rice one rouce at a time? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, two geese. So one moose, 2 meese? 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? 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 peoplere cite 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 the opposite? 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 thecreativity 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.

3 comments:

  1. And why do we drive on a parkway and park in a driveway?

    And how does anyone ever learn English who wasn't born (borne?) into it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow - not something I would have ever thought of, but kinda interesting to read. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wow - not something I would have ever thought of, but kinda interesting to read. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete

Comments will be open for a little while, then I will be shutting them off. The blog will stay, but I do not want either to moderate comments or leave the blog available to spammers.