Why English is so hard to learn
By McElroy Translation,
Austin, Texas 78701 USA
quotes[at]mcelroytranslation.com
http://www.mcelroytranslation.com/
An excerpt from Laurel book called “Anguished English”
by Richard Lederer
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If you ever feel stupid, then just read
on. If you’ve learned to speak fluent English, you must
be a genius! This little treatise on the lovely language
I share is only for the brave. 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”?
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