[etni] [FWD: Fw: English Language]
- From: ask@xxxxxxxx
- To: etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 2 Apr 2004 06:54:30 -0700
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> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Fw: English Language
> From: "Candella" <candella@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: Fri, April 02, 2004 1:18 am
> To: ask@xxxxxxxx
>
> Dear Etnians,
>
> Take a break from the annual crumb hunt a.k.a. Spring cleaning fest and
> enjoy seeing some of the little idiosyncrasies of the English language
> in print .
>
> Chag Sameach,
> Candella Schorer
>
>
>
> To my most articulate friend ... and former teachers ... and to my
> friends for whom English is a learned language ... how did we ever
> learn the English language, never mind teach it?
>
> We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes; but the plural of ox
> became oxen not oxes.
>
> One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese, yet the plural of moose
> should never be meese.
>
> You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice; yet the plural of
> house is houses, not hice.
>
> If the plural of man is always called men, why shouldn't the plural of
> pan be called pen?
>
> If I spoke of my foot and show you my feet, and I give you a boot,
> would a pair be called beet?
>
> If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth, why shouldn't the plural
> of booth be called beeth?
>
> Then one may be that, and three would be those, yet hat in the plural
> would never be hose, and the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
>
> We speak of a brother and also of brethren, but though we say mother,
> we never say methren.
>
> Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him, but imagine the
> feminine, she, shis and shim.
>
> Some other reasons to be grateful if you grew up speaking English:
>
> 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) At the Army base, a bass was painted on the head of a 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 Novocain 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?
> 22) I spent last evening evening out a pile of dirt.
>
> Screwy pronunciations can mess up your mind! For example ... if you
> have a rough cough, climbing can be tough when going through the bough
> on a tree!
>
> 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.
>
> 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?
>
> 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 folks who grew up speaking English should be
> committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.
>
> In what other 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 wiseguy 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.
>
> If Dad is Pop, how's come Mom isn't Mop?
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