Crazy English.:.
 

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

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.>>

Thats an interesting point there.

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!

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

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.

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.

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

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

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 :cool:

roflmao!
no wonder im crap at english

All these examples of weird English usage are generally more slang or informal. As to making the language more difficult to learn, I'd say only if you wanted to pick up on absolutely everything, which with a foreign language or advanced lanuage usage you might not exactly need.

But then again, some understanding of such examples can come down to tone of voice, facial expression and gestures, as with any other strange phrases in any language.

Edit: I was looking at the expressions such as 'wise guy'. The other things are so uncommon (such as plural of BOOTH) that they're... slightly reduntant? Lol

I forgot to quote that before and you are right. Pronunciation can become the bane of your existence during the first phase of the learning process xD

Who can explain why the I in 'since' sounds different from the one in 'bi', which is the same sound you find in 'bye' but there's no I there xD In English there're many letter combinations that have the same sound: week ~ weak, whine ~wine, knight ~night, wear ~where ~were, wait ~ weight, write ~ right, and so on.

Yeah of course it does, but I'd say English is the most grammatically simple language, you don't have conjugations of nouns and adjectives or feminine/masculine distinctions.

I was referring to what the text says; noses that run and feet that smell, how logical is that? lol

But I agree about it being a direct language. In English you can say in 5 words what in any other language would take a whole paragraph xDDD

"were" isn't pronounced the same as "where" and "wear" though...

Really, cause your grammar sucks?

1) There should be a comma after "English"
2) "And the second highest is a boy from Korean", Since you didn't specify that you were talking about the person with the highest percentage, it could be taken as if the second highest percentage IS a boy from Korea, not that the second hightest percentage is held by a boy from Korea. Also, "Korean" isn't a country, Korea is. You call the people from Korea, Korean.
3) There should be either a comma OR semi-colon after what is supposed to be Korea.
4) "hes" is incorrect, it's a contraction for "he is" therefore there should be an apostraphe after the "e" and before the "s"
5) Weren't you ever taught not to start a sentence with a conjunction! And= conjunction

That sentence should've been written, "I'm passing English, I have the highest percentage in my class! The second highest percentage is held by a boy from Korea; hes only been here for 3 years."

just thought I'd point that out

lol @ XjapanFOREVER... What you pointed out is good, but your fifth point isn't true... you can start a sentence with And!!

Ohhh you missed point number 4 yourself :D

Anyways, thank you for... being so nice towards other users =)

It isn't? :eek:

Nope, that other person is right, it's not the same!!! For example, say "Where were you yesterday?"... if you say them the same, it just sounds strange and it isn't correct!

*speaks out loud* "Where were you yesterday...?" xDDDDDDDD

Right, it doesn't quite sound the same but that's cause one follows the other and we unintentionally make them sound different :rolleyes: lol ok maybe not... but then how come that people mistype them all the time?

lol, i don't know why YOU always mistype them :rolleyes: lol

You can start with one, but it's highly frowned upon..
lol... I seriously didn't catch that.... lol..
It seriously wasn't meant to be mean, it was sort of a paradox. She claimed to have the highest grade in English, yet her writing wasn't exactly showing it

My first line was originally "....because it suX." It was a play on X JAPAN, but I figured someone else would be like "you spelled "sucks" wrong, so I changed it.

people are actually taking this seriously? O_O

lol, it's only frowned upon in primary school (junior school). If you read books, newspapers, grammar books, they always use it... The so-called "rule" is ignored these days....

English is my first language so i dont know, but is it hard to learn?
:P

lmao I put my sister to shame oh well.

I don't mistype them! My spelling is impeccable :cool:

Hahahaha it's cool. In fact I can't cope with people who, even though they know how to spell correctly, use as many abreviations as possible to... type faster? Only because it is a forum and you're not being examinated it doesn't mean you can ignore the spelling rules.

No, it's not.

"Were" is *mistyped* a lot because it's easy to miss the 'h' when you're typing fast and not realize it in time to fix it. Then of course some people are lazy so if they mistype it, even though they know it's wrong, they don't bother to fix it 'cause it will probably still get the point across.

I, personally, am usually not lazy about typing, but if I'm typing one-handed 'cause I'm eating or talking on the phone I *do* tend to use some short cuts. In these cases I'm already typing twice as slow, so I want to get the message out at least a little closer to my usual typing speed.

You say that, but there's loads of people here who don't speak English properly.
Things like saying "am" instead of "is".
No one speaks it perfectly

I beg to differ.
I think using proper grammar is important... being ignorant to the rules of the language to me shows stupidity.
I can't say I'm perfect, but I try my hardest and generally am good at it. I even pick up mistakes in the newspaper, journalists are supposed to be outstanding at English, too...

Sorry, I think saying "no-one" wasn't right then. Lots of people who speak English don't get everything right. As you said, people in newspapers get it wrong sometimes.

Or using "There's" with a plural subject like "loads." It's "there're." >_< As a native, this bugs the hell out of me when people say it and even more when people write it. I usually bite my tongue to avoid becoming a nuisance, but, meh, it was on topic ^_^ . :ywave:

How often do people say, "there's loads"?

Seems a bit odd.

But stuff like "your/you're" and "there/they're/their" drives me insane. I correct it at every opportunity. It's so basic yet so many people get it wrong...

You'd be surprised. I have to correct my parents, most of my friends, and even several of my English teachers on that one. I even had a long debate online about whether using "there's" with a plural subject colloquially is acceptable. IMO, it isn't because it breaks grammar rules. Plus, the "authority" on proper usage of the English language continues to say that the appropriate existential phrasing with a plural subject is "there are", and hence "there're."

Everyone complains that it's hard to say "there're" out loud. I agree. That's why I say "there are" when I speak.

HAHAHA! Aww man I feel sorry for all you non-English speaking people out there! haha even those of us that do speak English slip up sometimes! But you got to think of it this way: If you live in a place like America, there are soooo many nationalities! With that many different people in one country, ofcourse things are gonna get jumbled up!! But yeah, it can be hard if you're not used to it... haha my friend's mom is assyrian and she grew up in Iraq. She didn't know what global was! hahaha it was hilarious trying to explain it to her! :D

True, true. I have a friend who was born in California, but her parents are both from--I think--Beijing. Hence, her English vocabulary is very small for someone her age. I find myself constantly explaining what words mean (and differentiating words--last time, it was 'ambivelant' and 'omnipotent'). It's a lot of fun listening to her speak Mandarin with her mum, though ^_^

LOL Don't feel sorry, English can be mastered in a short amount of time without too much difficulty. I feel sorry for you guys who have to study verb tenses, whose existence you didn't know of because they are not used in English, when learning any other language ;)

I think it's fine to say "there's" instead of "there're" in coloquial speech; and believe me, some English-speaking people do write 'were' when they mean to say 'where' and they don't even realize the mistake they're making.

That is only acceptable when sending a text message or when there're 10 people talking to you on msn and you have to type fast to keep up with everyone's conversation :)

*rolls eyes* I'll overlook this lame excuse of yours... lol

Shortcuts might be "acceptable" but after reading many posts here where that type of language is used, it's becoming the standard, and that worries me. How many times have I said "I don't understand what you mean," and the writer replied "That's what happens when I write fast,"? It's a forum. There is no need to "write fast" and what is the point if your meaning is lost?

In my opinion it is not OK to say "there's" to replace "there are". It's lazy. Are we in so much of a hurry we can't say what we mean? How much time is wasted when your meaning is misunderstood? How you speak (and write) reflects on you, and in a forum like this, that is all we have. I would be lying if I said I didn't have a low opinion of some posters simply because they can't put three words together that are grammatically correct and spelled properly. Everyone makes mistakes, of course, but to purposely put the responsibility of comprehension on the reader, rather than take it as the writer, is lazy and insulting.

haha! Even Americans can't speak English...me neither >.>

"Who here is a grammar nerd?"
*raises hand sheepishly*

I gotta rap on this "there's vs there're" issue again, I'm afraid n_n;;; .

Even though English is pretty slim on verb conjugation as far as Indo-European languages go, we DO have rules for conjugating verbs. "Be" (to be) does conjugate. It goes to "are" for second person aspect and also for plural number. It goes to "is" for third person aspect and also singular number. Then, it goes to "am" for first person aspect with singular number. Verbs agree with the subject that they modify, hence talking about "loads of people", a plural subject, requires that the verb "to be"* be conjugated to "are" because of the plural number.

So, when you use the existential phrase "there [to be]" in the case of "loads of people", you would say "there are." Since we English speakers love contractions, the grammatically correct word is "there're," not "there's".

For those reasons, I can't accept it when people say "there's" with a plural subject, even in colloquial speech. It doesn't seem lazy to me, actually. To me, and I mean no offense to anybody, it seems ignorant and apathetic.

*This is for those who are starting out learning English:

"To be" is roughly equivelant (sp?) to "desu" (or "estar/ser" if you've studied Spanish at all). But, "there [to be]" is more equivelant to the "aru/iru" verbs. To me, saying "there's" for a plural subject would be like a gaijin using "irimasu" for something inanimate (like a coin or a bowl).

"There's trees" approximates to "Neko ga arimasu" in grammatical correctness.

That should be 'There are'. We were just talking about that!

And Amnell: I like you very, very much xD