(probably old)
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
> 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. 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?
>
> 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.
>
> PS: Why doesn’t “buick” rhyme with “quick”?
>