davidfcooper

From: David Curren
Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2006 9:38 AM

I've used the following with my classes the past few years to
illustrate the illogical side of English. You may have seen it
already since it's been floating around the internet for awhile.

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. However, 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. 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, two geese. So one moose, two
meese? One index, two 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?

Perhaps 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. Why doesn't "Buick" rhyme with
"quick?"

David Curren
Arlington, Mass. U.S.A.
dbcx@verizon.net
dcurren@mail.ab.mec.edu