YOU THINK ENGLISH IS EASY ?
1.
A bandage was wound around the wound.
2.
The farm was used to produce produce.
3.
The dump was so full, 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 his present.
8.
When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
9.
I did not object to the object.
10. The insurance
was invalid for the invalid.
11. There was a row
amongst the oarsman about how to row.
12. They were too
close to the door to close it.
13. The buck does
funny things when the does are present.
14. A seamstress and
a sewer fell into the sewer.
15. To help with the
planting a farmer taught his sow to sow.
16. The wind was too
strong to wind the sail.
17. Upon seeing the
tear in the painting, I shed a tear.
18. I had to subject
the subject to a series of tests.
19. How can I
intimate this to my 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 nor French fries in France.
Sweetmeats are candies, while sweetbreads, which aren’t
sweet, are meat.
Mincemeat is sweet and doesn’t contain any meat at all.
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 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 ? If on your foot your wear a boot, then on your
feet you should wear beet. One goose, 2 geese.
So, one mouse, 2 meese ? One mouse, 2 mice so one
house, 2 hice ? One index, 2 indices?
Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend ? You
can be disgruntled but not gruntled ? 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 don’t preachers praught ?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat
? If I drink and get drunk, can I think what I thunk ?
Sometimes I think all English speakers should be committed to
an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people
recite at a play and play at a recital ? Ship by truck and
send cargo by ship ?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, whilst 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.
There is a two letter word that perhaps has more meaning than
any other two letter word, and that is “UP”. It is easy to
understand UP, meaning towards the sky or the top of the list, but when we
awaken in the morning why do we wake UP ?
At a meeting, why does the topic come UP ?
Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it
UP to the secretary to write UP the report?
We call UP our friends. And we use it to
brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver; we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP
the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the
old car.
At other times the little word has real special meaning …
people stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP
excuses. To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed UP is
special.
A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped
UP. We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at
night.
We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP.
To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the
word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it
takes UP almost ¼ of the page and can add UP to about thirty
definitions.
If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the
many ways in which UP is used.
It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don’t give UP,
you may wind UP with a hundred or more.
When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding
UP. When the sun comes out, we say it is clearing
UP. When it rains, it wets the earth and
often messes things UP. When it doesn’t rain for a while,
things dry UP.
One could go on and one but I will wrap this UP for now my
time is UP, so it’s time to shut UP.
0 comments:
Post a Comment