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Crazy English.:. - 12-01-2007, 01:57 AM

Just thought I'd post it here. It goes for all of you guys who fail English at school

Oh and before you ask: NO, it was NOT me who wrote it =)


<<Let’s face it: English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant or ham in hamburger, neither apple nor pine in pineapple.

English muffins were not 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, two indices? Is cheese the plural of choose?

If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

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? Park on driveways and drive on parkways?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

How can the weather be hot as hell one day an cold as hell another?

When a house burns up, it burns down. You fill in a form by filling it out and an alarm clock goes off by going on.

When the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it?

Now I know why I flunked my English. It’s not my fault; the silly language doesn’t quite know whether it’s coming or going.
>>


everything is relative and contradictory ~
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12-01-2007, 02:05 AM

Thats an interesting point there.


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12-01-2007, 02:06 AM

ah... i feel much better now... me no good wit ink-lish
honestly you made some very good points.. wierd freaky language... but to native ~ this would be reguarded as common stuff, day to day stuff.. it's just that we are not used to it..
"Is cheese the plural of choose?" haha!



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12-01-2007, 02:08 AM

haha, i saw this on facebook too!!... but this kinda thing exists in ALLL languages!! I know it does in french, arabic, berber and chinese neway!! lol
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12-01-2007, 02:11 AM

I'm passing English I have the highest percentage in my class! And the second highest is a boy from Korean hes only been here for 3 years.


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12-01-2007, 02:16 AM

I do have the answer for 'how come it's cold one day and hot another', it's Chicago. Anyone who has visited here (yes I live in Chicago, Illinois) or Lived here knows what I mean. We have very weird weather here probaly how we got the nickname 'Windy City'.

But anyways I've never seen this but I kind of agree with this and I agree when people say this is the hardest language to learn, there's so much slang here now a days, it has to take years to learn it.
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12-01-2007, 02:16 AM

anyway, i think english is REALLY REALLY REALLY easy... when i first went to england as a child... after 3 months i was translating for my mother.... 3 MONTHS!!! and english was the fourth language that i learnt, out of berber, arabic and french, i thought that when i got to english, it was a joke tbh... things like this article said just sink in after hearing it a couple of times on tv. lol
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12-01-2007, 10:46 AM

Quote:
Originally Posted by animelover32 View Post
I do have the answer for 'how come it's cold one day and hot another', it's Chicago.
It's the expression 'like helll' that makes it incoherent. If you say "It's cold like hell" what you're saying is that hell is a cold place, and then you use the very same expression to say the very opposite thing xD

Quote:
Originally Posted by noodle
Quote:
Originally Posted by animelover32
But anyways I've never seen this but I kind of agree with this and I agree when people say this is the hardest language to learn, there's so much slang here now a days, it has to take years to learn it.
anyway, i think english is REALLY REALLY REALLY easy... when i first went to england as a child... after 3 months i was translating for my mother.... 3 MONTHS!!! and english was the fourth language that i learnt, out of berber, arabic and french, i thought that when i got to english, it was a joke tbh... things like this article said just sink in after hearing it a couple of times on tv. lol
English is BY FAR the easiest language there is to learn. I was fluent enough to have a long conversation with a native by the time I hit 14 (but that's because for 8 years I took 12 weekly hours of English... yeah, I gave up my childhood for this; no playing in the park after school with the other kids, I was taking English lessons instead lol).

So yeah, that in the text is just a bit confussing at first but like Noodle said, it doesn't take much to get used to it after you see it a couple of time on TV, then it's settled in your head forever.

By that I didn't want to make English seem more difficult than it actually is, I just wanted to stress on how it can be ilogical sometimes.


everything is relative and contradictory ~
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12-01-2007, 10:55 AM

Quote:
Originally Posted by Suki View Post
English is BY FAR the easiest language there is to learn. I was fluent enough to have a long conversation with a native by the time I hit 14 (but that's because for 8 years I took 12 weekly hours of English... yeah, I gave up my childhood for this; no playing in the park after school with the other kids, I was taking English lessons instead lol).

So yeah, that in the text is just a bit confussing at first but like Noodle said, it doesn't take much to get used to it after you see it a couple of time on TV, then it's settled in your head forever.

By that I didn't want to make English seem more difficult than it actually is, I just wanted to stress on how it can be ilogical sometimes.

I wouldn't say its by far the easiest language in out there! And i wouldn't call any language out there easy, it all depends on your mother tongue... easy example, most chinese i know have the biggest problem with english, but when they wanna learn japanese, it was easier for them!! so to a lot of chinese, japanese is an easier language than english...

as for english being illogical??????? i'd probably say its the most logical and direct language out there. I think thats one of the reasons why its the international language, it gets to the point easily and quickly! The rare times that its illogical is "rare", take french for example, you can learn the rules of the grammer etc which is all very easy... BUT, then you have to learn thousands of expections to the rules that just don't make sense. like my mother says (she's a french teacher), you can learn basic french easily, but to be advanced and to know all the exceptions to the rules will take you forever!!! That hardly exists in english
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12-01-2007, 11:02 AM

roflmao!
no wonder im crap at english


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