The musings and misadventures of a girl unprepared

Friday 18 April 2014

Reasons why English is HARD

Dear my non-native English speaking friends,

I have probably asked most of you at one point or another how you're so good at English and whether or not you find it difficult. Mainly due to the fact that the majority of people in England can't speak more than just English and bang on and on about how 'it's just too hard' to learn another language, so I'm always baffled when I meet people who can speak at least one other language fluently - I am close with German and Spanish, but like the good little English lass that I am, I'm complaining about it A LOT.

This morning I found this article posted on my Facebook wall about the difficulties of the English language because it perfectly sums up the utter lunacy of the language I thought I'd share it on here, so you non-native speakers can see why it's not an insult, but a compliment when I find it difficult to fathom how on earth you got so good at our bonkers language. (I don't think this site I've linked is the official composer, as I've seen parts of this dotted around the tinterweb in the past, but if I find the original I shall add it here.)

So here it is...

You think English is easy?
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) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear..
19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
20) 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.

Now do you understand why I'm so impressed by your mastery of English? I hope so. Now back to writing something that counts towards my degree and isn't entirely for procrastination purposes.

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