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- morrissey79, on 05/23/2009, -4/+167We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
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 nest full of mice,
Yet 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?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?
Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!
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 .
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.
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 folks who grew up speaking
English should be committed to an
asylum for the verbally insane.
In what other language do people recite at a play
and play at a recital? We ship by truck but send
cargo by ship. We have noses that
run and feet that smell. And 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.
So if Father is Pop, how come Mother isn't Mop?
And that is just the beginning--
even though this is the end! - stevegasm, on 05/23/2009, -1/+127Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
- nshady, on 05/23/2009, -3/+93By copying that line into the description you spoiled 63.6% of that miserable excuse for an article.
- eramos, on 05/23/2009, -2/+85It's almost as if language were an evolving system incorporating thousands of cultures and subject to the variation of billions of people over millenia instead of a sterile theoretical concept dreamed up in a laboratory somewhere.
- highPhone, on 05/23/2009, -4/+83WOW. your comment is better than the article :P
+1 internets to you sir. - vptel, on 05/23/2009, -2/+59ARTICLE: Seven ways to pronounce ough:
dough
tough
hiccough
bough
ought
cough
through
"If the English language made any sense," wrote Doug Larson, "lackadaisical would have something to do with a shortage of flowers."
SAVE YOUR BANDWIDTH PEOPLE, THE END IS NEAR - ihate2regist, on 05/23/2009, -1/+57James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher.
- Ftown13, on 05/23/2009, -0/+44Badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger
- k3nnyd, on 05/23/2009, -0/+41Real eyes realize real lies.
- nshady, on 05/23/2009, -0/+38If anyone was wondering, it's describing a quiz two students were doing.
James, while John had had 'had', had had 'had had'; 'had had' had had a better effect on the teacher.
i.e. James, despite John writing 'had', had written 'had had'; it turned out that 'had had' was better received by the teacher. - O8SERVER, on 05/23/2009, -2/+40Ghoti = fish
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoti - karikature, on 05/23/2009, -0/+37That's it? o_0
- noisymime, on 05/23/2009, -0/+34Will Will's will, will Will's will?
- JetwingX, on 05/23/2009, -0/+28i just end up saying spoot =\
- CrazyChair, on 05/23/2009, -1/+28Agreed, but at least we only have to learn 26 letters to read and write.
- wastenick, on 05/23/2009, -0/+25that happens with any word
- Bloodboiler, on 05/23/2009, -0/+23I like how inflammable is flammable,
murder of crows but school of fish and other random words for groups of animals. - morrissey79, on 05/23/2009, -0/+19This poem was found in my TESL training manual before I shipped off to China to teach. It is a pity that one of the teachers i worked with "borrowed" the text and never returned it...and then moved away. It was the bible of English language learning, and I had used it to plan every lesson up until the day it was taken.
Too expensive to rebuy. (Oxford Training Seminars TESL Certification Manual 2006) - ebcreasoner, on 05/23/2009, -0/+18My mind... blown!
- khedoros, on 07/31/2009, -0/+18This has been done better before, with more examples, more detail, etc. This was kinda a waste of bandwidth.
- Sk1ppy, on 05/23/2009, -0/+18Kinda sounds like a techno beat after a while.
- Kev10191, on 05/23/2009, -2/+19The US will start using a more logical language just after we convert to metric.
- immatellyouwhat, on 05/23/2009, -1/+18Keep saying boots over and over and over, the word loses all meaning...
- iDoraemon, on 05/23/2009, -8/+25English is my native language. Having studied 4 years of Chinese and 3 years of Japanese, I can also attest that English is a retarded language.
- OptionalPirate, on 05/23/2009, -1/+17Whoa.
- trixnfx, on 05/23/2009, -1/+17Apparently English is a difficult language since people can't tell the difference between "your" and "you're" on the internet.
Loser is not "looser" and learn the difference between their, there and they're! - wipis, on 05/23/2009, -0/+15I'm teaching English to Koreans, mostly kids. Adults ask me about this sort of thing and I have to tell them English just doesn't make sense. know is no not now. Write is right. home is home but come is cum (get your mind out of the gutter) or rather comb. Sometimes y is a vowel. Gallagher, that guy who smashed water melons, actually had some nice observations about this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWN9rTc08GU - sleepwalkers, on 05/23/2009, -1/+16MUSHROOM, MUSHROOM!
- nshady, on 05/23/2009, -0/+13And incidentally, with this sentence you could insert any number of 'had's between the apostrophes - meaning the potential number of 'had's is infinite. i.e. instead of John writing 'had', he could have written 'had had had had had had had had had had had etc.'.
- stanleyford, on 05/23/2009, -1/+13Who pronounces ought as "ort"?
- meathead, on 05/23/2009, -0/+12hiccough (usually spelled hiccup) = hick-up
cough = koff - TallestSkil, on 05/23/2009, -0/+11"James, while John had had 'had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had', had had 'had'; 'had' had had a better effect on the teacher. Rightly so, since John just copy/pasted his words multiple times to fill the one page, single-spaced requirement."
- hoju1123, on 05/23/2009, -2/+13Poppycock!
- morrissey79, on 05/23/2009, -1/+11An army of ants A pod of whales A pride of lions A fleet of ships A range of mountains A school of fish A bunch of things A galaxy of stars A cast of actors A grove of trees A swarm of bees A network of computers A wealth of information A conspiracy of ravens A blessing of unicorns
- Brododium, on 05/23/2009, -0/+9"Though the rough cough and hiccough plough me through, I ought to cross the lough"
Is the way I learnt to show this pronunciation peculiarity. - marshallpeck, on 05/23/2009, -0/+8SNAKE! IT'S A SNAKE! OOOOOOOO it's a snake...
- Anand999, on 05/23/2009, -0/+8Heck, there are words in English that are pronounced differently depending on the context. Take the word "live":
I live near a lake and would like to buy some live bait.
You pronounce those two "live"'s different. - EricAnderton, on 05/23/2009, -0/+7Locke locks locks, at the lock on the loch.
- revdrtomb, on 05/23/2009, -0/+7How is the pronunciation of "ough" in "cough" and "ought" different?
- LeeFH, on 05/23/2009, -1/+8badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger
- c2one2, on 05/23/2009, -0/+7Who police the police?
Police police police police. - yellowfish04, on 05/23/2009, -0/+7I first discovered this phenomenon as a kid with the word "coffee"
coffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffee - SurrealDream, on 05/23/2009, -0/+6I always spell a hiccup as hiccup o_O I didn't realise hiccough meant hiccup. Why not just say hiccup?!?
Oh English, you confound me. - zeabu, on 05/23/2009, -0/+6I read a book now, the one I read yesterday too.
It's the same word, both from 'to read'. Only the tense is different. - brycehebert, on 05/23/2009, -0/+6Also: "Would have," not "would of."
- yellowfish04, on 05/23/2009, -0/+6that...was it?
- FlashDriveDT, on 05/23/2009, -0/+6Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
- karikature, on 05/23/2009, -1/+7One is pronounced as "ough" in cough, the other as "ough" in ought. Hope this helps.
- ignisatra, on 05/27/2009, -0/+6SNAKE!!! AHHH SNAKE!!!!
OOOOO IT'S A SNAKE!!! - Nanobe, on 05/24/2009, -0/+6Bison from the state of Buffalo that are intimidated by other bison from Buffalo also intimidate those bison from Buffalo.
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