Ever wonder why the English Language is so difficult?

[gtp1976]

Ever wonder 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 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.
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?
By the way...
a.. There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
b.. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France.
c.. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads aren't sweet nor breads.
d.. Quicksand works 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?
e.. If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth?
f.. One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese?
g.. 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?
h.. 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?
i.. 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.
j.. 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.
k.. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.
l.. P.S. - Why doesn't "Buick" rhyme with "quick"?

[kick-ass-bob]

1. stop. you're making my head hurt.

[KurtNYC]

2. We park in driveways and drive on parkways

[chicagojoe]

3. Because un-like most of the European languages,

English evolved out of several languages, not just Latin.

[neweurope]

5. Hmmm... that applies to most European languages. Actually

we find English much more easy to learn than French, Spanish, Latin or whatever. That's why it's the first language our children learn.

I love that though. I'm going to send it to my niece, maybe she can read it in English class.

-------------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague

[chicagojoe]

6. And of course, there is British English, and American English.

The diffrences are few, but there nonetheless.

[Hand]

12. Dutch is a rather odd language too!

When I hear it spoken, I can pretty much understand a lot of what's being said--it sounds sort of like English on acid!
:hi: :silly:

[neweurope]

13. Heehee. I cannot unerstand a word when Dutch is spoken but I can read

and understand a lot.

:hi:

----------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[Bridget Burke]

9. Yes, that's it.

The root of English is Anglo-Saxon (Old English). Many Danes settled in the North of England & the somewhat similar (Germanic/Scandinavian) languages did some blending.

Then the Normans invaded & there was NO Anglo-Saxon literature for many years. The people continued to speak the language but many learned Norman-French as well. During this period, we lost many of the "inflections"--those changeable endings on verbs (& sometimes nouns) that drive English speaker nuts when trying to learn a more inflected language. English became "positional"--word order became more important than inflection.

When Chaucer published his racy stories, he used what we now call Middle English. The language had many synonyms (or near synonyms) from the Germanic roots & Romance graft. Latin continued as the language of the educated for some centuries--so words continued to be added from the Romance side.

And, as the language continued to evolve, nobody ever really cleaned up the spelling to reflect how words were pronounced. It's a rich language, indeed. But I'm glad I learned it when my brain was young.

[Squeech]

15. The Germanic tribes were all over England

Angles, Saxons, and Jutes were all Germanic tribes that crossed the Channel, mainly to avoid more aggressive Goths. Then, having arrived, they had to live with the Picts and Celts that were already there.

One of the interesting artifacts of the Norman conquest is exactly what spheres of activity kept the Anglo-Saxon words and which ones had the Frankish words replace them. The best example I know is food animals: they're Anglo-Saxon on the hoof (cow, sheep, pig) but French on the table (beef=boeuf, mutton=mouton, pork=porc). Can you say "ruling class"? Thought you could...

[ChickMagic]

4. Don't forget

Through, enough, bough all spelled with "ough" but all pronouned differently. I'm sure there must be more.

[Squeech]

11. Though the tough cough and hiccough plough him through

All these words come from the Germanic heritage, of course, and very likely the (now silent) GH sounds used to represent real gutturals (that's the linguists' term for a throat clearing used as a phoneme).

[JohnnyRingo]

7. Parachute, Psycology, physical, and pnumatic

What sound does "P" represent?

[Bridget Burke]

10. Some of the "p" words came out of the Greek....

A good source for educated folk wanting to invent new words.

"Psyche" was the lover of Eros. Any Ancient Greeks around who can tell us how it was pronounced?

[sniffa]

8. stop making excuses for dubya

:P

[chenGOD]

14. ahh an oldie but a goodie....

As a teacher of ESL that one always warms my heart.

My kids (I teach elementary school kids) always ask me questions about words like that. Since it's tough to go into the etymology of words with elementary school aged kids who don't speak English as their first language, I often have a difficult time explaining.

[meow2u3]

16. While we're on the subject.....

Why is laughter pronounced laff-ter, but slaughter prounounced slaw-ter?

Why do we prounounce tough (tuff), trough as (trawf), and though as (tho)?

[Hand]

19. Insh'Allah... nt

[NorthernSpy]

17. because it's an analytical language...

... that preserves archaic forms in spelling.

People who speak inflected languages can get lost in an English sentence, because it won't always be immediately clear to them who is doing what to whom.

Do schools in non-Anglo countries have spelling bees? If spelling has been rationalized to the point that there's usually only one way to represent a given sound, then there is little need to teach spelling as a separate subject.

[smedwed]

18. Britain

Britain doesn't normally have spelling bees even though
the british speak english (or welsh or gaelic i suppose :P)