Funny article on eigo

[kinjo]

Was sent this article by a friend. very interesting.
read the harsh comments as just something funny. No hard feelings. I wish there were some article like this on Japanese as well. would make interesting comparison.

English Lesson

This little treatise on the lovely language we share is only for the
brave. It was passed on by a linguist, original author unknown. Peruse
at your leisure, English lovers.

Reasons 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.
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?

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 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, 2 indices? 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?

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?

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.

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.

That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

PS Why doesn't "buick" rhyme with "quick"?

[moyashi]

I've seen this before. I always laugh and marvel over these sentences.

nice

[Ahmed.M.K]

lol .. nice article .. lol

[Olivia]

haha! fabulous! very nice!

[Olivia]

(but japanese is much harder... specially the writing!)
;)

[Anastasia]

it's so funny because it's so true! nothing is ever simple in the english language...(as i seem to be figureing out in College Communication Skills class)

[Anastasia]

no wonders why i 'm doing so bad in english class, i cant even spell LOL

[Maciamo]

I've seen the second part before. I like puns like in the first part. I have plenty of others as well, but it's difficult to come with any like this. It's always funny to talk about wearing long shorts or these kind of things.

[moyashi]

anybody see the f_ck usage list?
Now that's one funny piece of written information.

[deborah gormley]

I'v never seen this before, and it is great, and sooo true! lol "wear,,, lol Where did you get this from Kinjo?"

[thomas]

Great English lesson, Kinjo!

Originally posted by moyashi
anybody see the f_ck usage list? Now that's one funny piece of written information.

Can this be publicly posted or should we keep that for a private forum, lol?

[moyashi]

I don't know. M.I.T. (unversity) had it on their servers before.

Pretty informative on how to use that word properly in English though.

[Tragedy]

Does anyone have a Japanese version of something like this?

[Olivia]

yeah, that would be interesting as well!

[Maciamo]

Check this site for more : http://www.chiasmus.com/

[samuraitora]

that article was stupendous...LOL

[kinjo]

Originally posted by deborah gormley
I'v never seen this before, and it is great, and sooo true! lol "wear,,, lol Where did you get this from Kinjo?"

sorry for the late reply but was caught up with some heavy duty work....Actually had got this one forwarded from a friend of mine. keep getting such funny forwards all the time.
Had one more cool article on how German was derived. The first sentence is in english and step by step, with various rules, the sentences are changed and finally, the last sentence is in German (eg. "they decided to replace all ''c"s with 'k's etc etc)
real fundoo one...but lost it somewhere.
:-(
Seeing such mails really makes one marvel at the complexity of the English language. Man, no wonder, the Japanese have such a hard time struggling with English. How could someone, who has not studied English from childhood (thus increasing the time of learning and obviously, the grasping power is much higher then), born and brought up without having to speak a line of English, ever master the nuances of the English language?!!

As tough as mastering the Kanji or keigo,say?!
maybe........

And I always thought pronunciation is the toughest aspect of eigo....

[tosh]

F^ck usage stems from laziness. The proper words should be found, and used in a sentence. Overuse of a singular word dilutes it's power. The world is not Brooklyn, and a word like that should not be swung like a baseball bat. If one must (and there times when its vital), one should use their intellect to bludgeon...(warau).

[moyashi]

True Tosh but you have to admit that it is a colorful word.

[Eirik]

"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."

That look at the word "pineapple" made me think of "pomme de terre," the French word for potato, meaning literally "apple of earth" or something like that


"Reasons why the English language is so hard to learn: [...]"

If those sentences are reasons why English is "so hard to learn," then Japanese should be very much harder, shouldn't it? :P
Japanese has tons of homonyms, far more than English (at least it seems so to me;) though kanji makes up for these in written language, but not in spoken.

As an example, the word "koukai" can have the following meanings according to my dictionary:

Red Sea, Yellow Sea, renewal, regret, high seas, presenting to the public, sail, public meeting

shishi:
corpse, historical poem, heir, historical poem, patriot, limbs, lion, patriotism, store

Good they have kanji to make distinctions between words, or written Japanese could be quite confusing at times. what do you think?

[Olivia]

@eirik
yes, it's very good that kanji can make a difference, but also the pronunciation differs from a word to another (considering they are homonyms). and then it comes the importance of the context in which the words are used.

[tosh]

Moyashi, you're correct. It is a colourful word.

[moyashi]

haha, a colorful and lazy word at that.

@ Kanji
There you go! Some main reasons why switching to a Romanized system would be difficult.

[Maciamo]

@homonyms
Even if kanji are different, word that sound the same with a different meaning are homonyms. If they are written the same way and have different meanings, then they are polysemic words. For example, in English "fair" has lots of completely different meanings (fair weather, book fair, fair-play, fair results, fair hair, etc.), but it's still the same spelling (same kanji, if you prefer). English has much more polysemic words than homonyms. Japanese has even more of both, which really makes it ambiguous (maybe that's why they have "subtitles" on TV even when they are speaking Japanese !).

[Maciamo]

That look at the word "pineapple" made me think of "pomme de terre," the French word for potato, meaning literally "apple of earth" or something like that.

Pineapple does have a connection with French, but with "pomme de pin", which means "pine cone" or "fir cone". Now you see more clearly the relationship between a pine cone and a pineapple. The first one is smaller, but they have a similar shape, are hard, brown, with the same peculiar "scales". As there is another word for "pine cone", it's not confusing. Spanish call a pineapple "pina" (with a wave on the "n" for the "ny" sound), which also mean "pine cone". The funny thing is that most of the other European call it "Ananas", a international word that I find suit the fruit very well (so why does the most international language in the world have to call it a pine cone ?).