THe english Language

[fingersman]

Well I got this in my email and I thought it was sort of fun..so I posted it here...have fun and see how confusing the English language can be or strange.:D

So...you thought you were tough enough to try to learn English? This little
treatise on the lovely language we share is only for the brave. It was
passed on by a linguist, original author unknown. Reasons why the English
language is so hard 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 though 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?

[Jin]

It's so confusing!:errr: I can totally understand why foreigners complain about how tough the language is. I'm glad I was raised with the language, because it would be impossible for me to learn.

[Joeiss]

hahaha..... Oh man, that was hillarious!!!

[fingersman]

Originally posted by Jin
It's so confusing!:errr: I can totally understand why foreigners complain about how tough the language is. I'm glad I was raised with the language, because it would be impossible for me to learn.

Hehehehe if you think English is confusing try learning Japanesse...they read from right to left, down to up.....and a few other things...but I'm not to sure about those other things so I won't post them .

[Jin]

Originally posted by fingersman


Hehehehe if you think English is confusing try learning Japanesse...they read from right to left, down to up.....and a few other things...but I'm not to sure about those other things so I won't post them .

Yeah, their sentences are also structured differently and the driver is on the right side.:eek: Okay, that has nothing to do with the language but oh well.:p

[Happydude]

lol...good one fingers...really confusing though:errr:

[GameKinG]

Try learning chinese...

[gekko]

Ya, hard to learn. Look around web forums, most people still never caught on to english grammar.

Still, it's better than Spanish. That language just sucks. Prolly cause I suck at it. Oh well, I'd rather learn Pascal than Spanish.

[BreakABone]

Originally posted by gekko
Ya, hard to learn. Look around web forums, most people still never caught on to english grammar.

Still, it's better than Spanish. That language just sucks. Prolly cause I suck at it. Oh well, I'd rather learn Pascal than Spanish.

Hhaha, well it would seem not many people on any forums know the correct rules of grammar. Most would probably think, I'm guilty of that as well, but I know most of the rules just don't care to enforce them on forums.

I still find Spanish to be a rather weird but nice addiition to English. Probably because I passed it and it's over.

[TheGrimReaper]

Stupid English :mad:


Hey isn't Indonesian the easiest language to learn?

[Bube]

English wasn't so hard to learn. I learned it 6 months after I started school.

But that may only be me.

[sdtPikachu]

Originally posted by Jin
...and the driver is on the right side.:eek:

Hey! The driver is MEANT to be on the right hand side... ;)

[J3]IMaster]

Hey you are right there sdtPika:D

I'm just glad I grew up with the langauge

[fingersman]

Originally posted by sdtPikachu


Hey! The driver is MEANT to be on the right hand side... ;)

Yeah the driver is on the right hand side, where I live as well....it's probadly Jin that's weird. ;):p j/k

[Revival]

I probably wouldn't suck at driving so much if I was on the right side.. I have a tendency to go towards the white line...

But that English stuff is weird.. boo to English! :p

[GameMaster]

Sentences like these hardly appear in everyday life. I understand them all but I can see where it would be hard for a foreigner to define and understand the words that are used more than once.

Hey, look on the bright side, at least the English language has only 26 letters.

[Jin]

Originally posted by sdtPikachu


Hey! The driver is MEANT to be on the right hand side... ;)

I forgot that Europeans had their driver on the wrong side too.;)

[Angrist]

Originally posted by Jin


I forgot that Europeans had their driver on the wrong side too.;) Wrong, only in Great Brittain.

And English isn't hard at all!! It's one of the easier languages to learn! French for example is a lot harder!!

I understood all of the lines, I just didn't know a couple of words (sow for example), but I could guess what kind of word it had to be. BTW all languages have such 'double' words.

Oh yeah, they say Dutch is even harder to learn than Japanese!! :D:D

[Ric]

Very good... not all properly structured sentances but hey they get the point across. I had no problem with reading them BTW.

Now whats this I hear about driving on the left, dont you get me started... too late:

Roads were pretty much derived to cater for the horse and cart, first used in medieval England, the first form of a road veachile in many respects. And we rode on the left then.

You guys go on driving on the 'right' side of the road, me I am happy with driving on the 'correct' side of the road thankyou very much :p

[Shadow_Link]

That... really wasn't confusing at all... Anyone who speaks English on a daily basis should not have a problem with sentences like those, let alone be confused.

*Runs away*.

[fingersman]

Originally posted by Angrist
Wrong, only in Great Brittain.

And English isn't hard at all!! It's one of the easier languages to learn! French for example is a lot harder!!

I understood all of the lines, I just didn't know a couple of words (sow for example), but I could guess what kind of word it had to be. BTW all languages have such 'double' words.

Oh yeah, they say Dutch is even harder to learn than Japanese!! :D:D

Well a sow is a female pig :D and before I forget on my island we drive on the left hand side....I made a mistake in my last post, I thought you were talking about which side of the car the driver was on. hehehehe
Silly me :D

[BlueFire]

English isn't that difficult. I make mistakes from time to time and I learn from them.


Now...Spanish...I was born in the USA into a Spanish family...and I spoke Spanish perfectly. As I grew up, I assimilated. Now, I don't speak Spanish very well. I can still speak and read Spanish. Writing in Spanish takes some effort. :D Heh...It's sometimes embarrassing to call me a Hispanic. :unsure:

[Revival]

Originally posted by BLueFire
Heh...It's sometimes embarrassing to call me a Hispanic. :unsure:
It's embarrassing to call you anything ;) :D

[playa_playa]

The problem with such sentences is that the verb also act as a subjective noun. Hence, it sounds redundant when read. They are generally considered a stylistic flaw by many linguists and grammarians.

For example:

"I smell the smell."

The verb and the subjective noun are identical. Hence, it leaves itself to confusion and opacity. It is better to avoid these types of structures as it is better to not split infinitives, use expletive beginnings and conditional conjunctions.

Every language has its idiosyncratic obscurities. English seems to be more logical in its speech (probably due to its Latin roots) than most other languages to me - which makes learning the language seemigly easier than others.

[Angrist]

It's funny how some words are pronounced differently:

I object to the object.
He could lead if he'd get the lead out.
The bandage was wound around the wound.

[TheGrimReaper]

And we get frustrated at other languages.

[Ric]

Heres another one for you:

It's no use, I just can't use it.

There ya go :D

[Angrist]

I'm going to see two people too, is that too much??

[gekko]

Originally posted by Shooter
I probably wouldn't suck at driving so much if I was on the right side.. I have a tendency to go towards the white line...

You might not suck so much if you realized there's more than one white line on the road :)

But ya, I think everyone tends to move right when they start driving. Since you don't really know where your car is in the lane, you notice the cars on your left side passing by, and if you get too close you will hit them, so your basic survival instinct tells you to stay right and have the other side get hit.

Just a hint: find something to line up with the lines. On most cars, the edge of the hood can line up with the left line and you're pretty much centered. And when you know your centered, line the right line up with something on your car. My car happens to be the right sprayer on the hood, others have the line on the hood, etc. Just find an object on the left and right side of the car, and then when you drive, line your car up with those, and you should have better luck staying in the center of the lane.

If you drove on the right side of the car, you would go towards the left side of the lane.

[Revival]

Thanks gekko, my dad told me the same thing. The corner of the windshield lines right up with the yellow line, then I am centered.

But thanks :D