This is why it is so hard to learn English. Interesting!
Can you read this through the first time correctly?
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) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a
tear.
19) I had to subject the subject to a series of
tests.
20) 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? Sometimes I think all
the 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? 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?
Why do we park on driveways and drive on parkways?
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?"
