My brother sent this to me today. I heard recently that the U.S. is the one of the few nations that has local, regional and national spelling bees. Why? Because our spelling is so nuts. (Ever see Spellbound, the documentary about the national spelling bee? Trust me: It’s great! IMDb users give it an 8.1 out of 10.)
Peruse at your leisure, English lovers. Reasons why the English language is so hard to learn:
- The bandage was wound around the wound.
- The farm was used to produce produce.
- The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
- We must polish the Polish furniture.
- He could lead if he would get the lead out.
- The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
- Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
- A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum
- When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
- I did not object to the object.
- The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
- There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
- They were too close to the door to close it.
- The buck does funny things when the does are present.
- A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
- To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
- The wind was too strong to wind the sail
- After a number of injections my jaw got number.
- Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
- I had to subject the subject to a series of tests
- How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
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.
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?
If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth beeth?
One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese?
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?
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.P.S. – Why doesn’t “Buick” rhyme with “quick”?
Susan, as you have started a language thread, perhaps I can introduce the topic of Australian English. American English speakers can find Australians quite confusing. You may find some amusement by looking at this list of Australian slang. Let me know if you need an interpreter to explain further.
There’s also a cute Aussie-American dictionary here. Of course, it’s not the only one, but it also has a lot of anecdotal material detailing the differences between Australian and American word usages and customs in general.
An interesting site, thanks Donna. The comparative word list is probably more useful than the Aussie slang list.
My partner is from Oz, and she is always surprising me with new words and weird phrases.
My favorite so far? On entering a large room: “It’s big enough to swing a cat in here!”
More usually used in describing a small, cramped area: ‘it’s not big enough to swing a cat’. I’ve never thought much about the origins of this expression ’til now, but a quick search just turned up this:
Perhaps it was adopted in Australia given our convict origins.
Then of course, there is the fascist-swinging-the-cat-by-the-tail scene from Bertolucci’s ‘1900’. Yuck. But great film.
Can’t wait until she uses the expression again, so I can casually explain the origins. Her family were English free settlers (the Cooper beer family) and since my ancestry is significantly Irish, we do have some spirited discussions about the settling of Australia.
Great country..can’t wait to see more of it.
Hey, make sure you drink plenty of the Cooper’s beer. The Sparkling Ale is unfiltered and bottle-conditioned, so it has the yeast sediment at the bottom and becomes cloudy if shaken. A real beer with actual flavour! And you can cellar it like wine.
Now there’s a subject. Don’t get me started on wine…
I mentioned this discussion to the aforementioned partner, and she agreed with you but being the inquisitive sort, she pulled out the Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable and in addition to the cat-o’-nine-tails theory on origin, she found this:
“However, cat is also an old Scottish word for rogue, and if the derivation is from this, the ‘swing’ is that of the condemned rogue hanging from the gallows.”
With choices like that in your history, it is no wonder that you folks play Australian Rules football without protective gear. Rough crowd. š
Is the Brewer’s Dictionary issued to everyone at the Cooper’s Brewery? A very strange tradition! š
The rules of Aussie Rules football mean that there is quite limited danger to the players.
that make – and drink – Cooper’s Pale Ale. The other side of her family has a winery in the Borassa Valley. All the essentials.
What time is it there? Something like 4 AM, right? You a night owl or just up very early?
My last comment was at about 1.45am on Monday. I was just staying up late after the rest of the family went to sleep so that I could get some peaceful time on my own on the net. Today (Monday) is a national holiday: ANZAC Day. It’s the 90th anniversary of the British-Australian-NZ military landing at Gallipoli (Turkey)in 1915.
Your partner might explain why this is a significant enough event for a national holiday: if not I’ll find some web sources.
Knew that. We spent a day at the AWM when in Canberra in 1997. Missed ANZAC Day by about a week. Magnificent collections.
Wanted to go to Gallipoli when I was in Istanbul in 2002, but wasn’t there long enough. Will be going back one day soon.
Why English Is So Hard to Learn
We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes;
But the plural of ox should be oxen, not oxes.
Then 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 whole lot of mice;
But 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?
The cow in a plural may be cows or kine;
But the plural of vow is vows, not vine.
If I speak of foot, and you show me two feet;
And I give you a book … would a pair be a beek?
If one is a tooth and the whole set are teeth;
Why shouldn’t the plural of booth be called beeth?
If the singular is this and the plural is these;
Should the plural of kiss be ever called keese?
Then one may be that, and three may be those,
Yet the plural of hat would never be hose.
We speak of a brother, and also of brethren;
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
The masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine she, shis and shim!
So our English, I think you’ll all agree,
Is the trickiest language you ever did see.
Author unknown
Never heard that one. Archaic, maybe?
I was going to bring up the “ough” thing and “ghoti” but others beat me to it.
Fun diary!
Alan
Maverick Leftist
the letter combination “-ough”, which should make for a lot of confusion for non-native speakers:
Another indication of the difficulty of the English language is this proof that even our computer’s Spell Check aid cannot be trusted as 100% reliable:
I have a spelling checker.
It came with my PC.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot see.
Eye ran this poem threw it.
Your sure real glad two no.
Its very polished in its weigh,
My checker tolled me sew.
A checker is a blessing.
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right awl stiles two reed,
And aides me when aye rime.
Each frays comes posed up on my screen
Eye trussed too bee a joule.
The checker pours o’er every word
To cheque sum spelling rule.
Bee fore a veiling checkers
Hour spelling mite decline,
And if we’re laks oar have a laps,
We wood bee maid too wine.
Butt now bee cause my spelling
Is checked with such grate flare,
There are know faults with in my cite,
Of nun eye am a wear.
Now spelling does not phase me,
It does knot bring a tier.
My pay purrs awl due glad den
With wrapped words fare as hear.
To rite with care is quite a feet
Of witch won should be proud,
And wee mussed dew the best wee can,
Sew flaws are knot aloud.
Sow ewe can sea why aye dew prays
Such soft wear four pea seas,
And why eye brake in two averse
Buy righting want too please.
Super Diary… as someone who has lived in many a foreign land, I’ve had to answer questions about my language and sometimes I just have to shrug and say who knows why it’s so nuts š
BTW on the Buick thing, that was an Indian (Native American) name, that’s why it’s pronounced like that.
Pax
soj, do rent “Spellbound.” Can you get Netflix or something similar in Romania? Hope so! Anyway, you as an astute observer of people, would find the character studies of these kids and their parents utterly fascinating.
pronounce ‘ough’
you have SIC choices:
ooo as in through
oh as in although
(h)ow as in plough
off as in cough
(sn)uff) as in tough
awe as in thought
and if that is not bad enough
try pronouncing GHOTI
would you believe you could pronounce it FISH?
while these might not be his examples, GB Shaw came up with this:
lauGH = F
wOmen = I
naTIon = sh
of course, given that English has roots from Latin, French, German and Danish among other things
that our pronunciation went through a major change in what is known as the great vowel shift circa the time of Chaucer
that we really did not ahve standardiozed spelling until it gbegins around the time of Dr. Johnson
put it all together, and of course the language is confusing.
GHOTI=FISH
TI=S is in fact consistently used in the tiny Pacific island nation of Kiribati.
You may think that Ki-ri-ba-ti has four syllables, but it is actually 3; Ki-ri-bas. The easternmost populated island of the nation is Kiritimati – better known as Christmas Island.
And I’ll be sharing this thread with my kids later today.
More like a language salad, bits of different ones tossed together.
English had no standardized spelling until the 18th century, or was it the 19th, hard to tell, since you can argue that it still does not today.
On the positive side, if you are not sure what English verb you need to say something, you can always just use “get.”
movie.
Fantastic documentary.
It’s one of the best things on ESPN.
You mean the spelling bees that are aired on ESPN? I wish ESPN would show the documentary. Glad you agree that it’s a great documentary – I was so skeptical before we went to see it at the Rose Theatre in Pt. Townsend, but became engrossed, and was dying to find out what happened to the kids afterwards.
It was excellent. I loved it!
from a movie buff.
Those homonyms are a problem.
is this:
Why to we drive on the parkway and park in the driveway?
You take a Germanic language (Anglo-Saxon or Old English), thrown in some wild card terms via Danish invasions, then cross the whole thing with French thanks to the Norman Invasion, and the result is fairly insane language, Middle English. Let that mogrel brew for several centuries, deal in quite a few other influences, and you get that linguistic nightmare called modern English, with almost twice the total number of words as any other, normal, sane language.
I remember a very smart Asian student asking, if you can say “I am having trouble” and if you can say “I am having a baby,” why you can’t say “I am having a book.” My very smart reply, “Because, ummm, err, well, because you can’t.”
If you want to have a little fun, try pronouncing “knight” as it was originally pronounced. How was it originally pronounced? Pretty much as it’s spelled.
Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time.
I have an illness that compels me to quote Monty Python everywhere. I am trying to find a 12 Step Program.
Or just fly to New York and see the stage version.
This is kind of fun.
oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and
lsat ltteres are in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you
can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey
lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
The spoken language is pretty simple because the grammar is simple – true there is a large quantity of words (but to communicate one doesn’t have to memorize the Oxford unabridged), however the written word is a phonetic nightmare.