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Reasons why some people think English
is hard to learn or reasons why other people (like
me) think English is great fun 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,
that you comb through annals of history but not a
single annal? 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? Park
on a driveway, yet drive on a parkway? Chop a
tree down, then cut up the wood? 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? How can overlook and oversee
be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are
alike? Have you noticed that we talk about
certain things only when they are absent? Have
you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful
gown? Have you ever met a sung hero or experienced
requited love? Have you ever run into someone who
was couth, combobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable?
And where are all those people who ARE spring
chickens or who would ACTUALLY hurt a fly? 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, isn't a race at all). That is why, when the
stars are out, they are visible. However, when the
lights are out, they are invisible. Why, when
I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up
this essay, I end it?
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