english language..

[slipknotpsycho]

i tired to get a thread started on this before but i don't think i quite showed exactly what i meant, so now i found what it was based off of....

English is the most widely used language in the history of our planet. One in every seven human beings can speak it. More than half of the world's books and three-quarters of international mail are in English. Of all languages, English has the largest vocabulary--perhaps as many as two million words--and one of the noblest bodies of literature.

Nonetheless, let's face it: English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, neither pine nor apple in pineapple and no ham in a hamburger. English muffins weren't invented in England or french fries in France. Sweetmeats are candy, while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted. But when we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, public bathrooms have no baths and a guinea pig is neither a pig nor from Guinea.

And why is it that a writer writes, but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce, humdingers don't hum and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, shouldn't the plural of booth be beeth? One goose, two geese--so one moose, two meese? One index, two indices--one Kleenex, two Kleenices?

Doesn't it seem loopy that you can make amends but not just one amend, that you comb through the annals of history but not just one annal? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and you get rid of all but one, what do you call it?

If the teacher taught, why isn't it true that the preacher praught? If a horsehair mat is made from the hair of horses and a camel's-hair coat from the hair of camels, from what is a mohair coat made? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? If you wrote a letter, perhaps you also bote your tongue?

Sometimes I wonder if all English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what other language do people drive on a parkway and park in a driveway? 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? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike? How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell the next?

Did you ever notice that we talk about certain things only when they are absent? Have you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful gown, met a sung hero or experienced requited love? Have you ever run into someone who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable?

And where are the people who are spring chickens or who actually would hurt a fly? I meet individuals who can cut the mustard and whom I would touch with a ten-foot pole, but I cannot talk about them in English.

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 your alarm clock 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 really a race at all). That is why, when stars are out they are visible, but when the lights are out they are invisible. And why, when I wind up my watch I start it, but when I wind up this essay I end it.

and of course (from george carlin) there are things like like: near miss, when they use this to describe two planes that nearly collided.. which is stupid becuase that's a near hit... a collision is a near miss

pre-boarding, well what is that, to get on before you get on


so add your words/phrases that just don't make sense.... i really want to get a fully compiled list together... the last attempt didn't fly to well (infact not at all) but i'm going to guess becuase there wasn't a whole lot of substnace or example to it.

slipknotpsycho Reviewed by slipknotpsycho on 09-16-2007. english language.. i tired to get a thread started on this before but i don't think i quite showed exactly what i meant, so now i found what it was based off of.... and of course (from george carlin) there are things like like: near miss, when they use this to describe two planes that nearly collided.. which is stupid becuase that's a near hit... a collision is a near miss pre-boarding, well what is that, to get on before you get on so add your words/phrases that just don't make sense.... i really Rating: 5

[water]

interesting read

i hadnt noticed befor how contradictive the english language really is

[fasterspider]

I think our language is just a big mix of French, Latin, German and a couple of other European languages mixed together. Oh yeah, that is what the English language is made up of.
The English almost spoke French as the national language but we got lucky and only got stuck with French words that have been mutated to sound not so French.
The History Channel has taught me more about the World than all my years of school history classes because all the stuff they taught when I was in school has been uprooted with truths that were too horrific for the lame generations before me to comprehend, so they made up a history for us to realize.

[Purple Banana]

Well, to be fair, hamburgers are from the Hamburg islands...

"They call 'em fingers, but you never see them fing... Oh wait, there they go..."

As an English major, this stuff has always confused me...

[snoogans]

we shoulda just stayed with old english, its a much more sensible language...i think :/

[happiestmferoutthere]

The word read(present tense) and read(past tense) really drives me nuts. You can't tell if they will read it or if they have read it, until the end of the sentence, practically. I've always thought that was poor planning when they invented the English language. Why not use a different word. There is plenty to go around!

[LIP]

The word read(present tense) and read(past tense) really drives me nuts. You can't tell if they will read it or if they have read it, until the end of the sentence, practically. I've always thought that was poor planning when they invented the English language. Why not use a different word. There is plenty to go around!

The same for Lead and Lead. It's just context. Makes it more fun all round!

[smokerofweed420]

This is why I love studying spanish. Its such a simple language compared to english.

[toozlah]

One thing to say about English: I'm glad it's my first language, because it would be a BITCH to learn it from nothing later on.