Hilarious! And true! Thread poster: RSI EN-ES (AA)
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Don\'t know who wrote this, but it\'s excellent.
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Why do foreigners speak so many crazy languages like Spanish, when English
is simple and universal? Here is a reply by one speaking a crazy language:
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 t... See more Don\'t know who wrote this, but it\'s excellent.
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Why do foreigners speak so many crazy languages like Spanish, when English
is simple and universal? Here is a reply by one speaking a crazy language:
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.
 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.
1 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 neither 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? [There is also
\"indexes\", with a different meaning. RH].
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? Park in a
driveway, and drive on a parkway? 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.
People, not computers, invented English 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.
I\'m sew confused,
P.S. So why doesn\'t \" Buick\" rhyme with \"quick\"?
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| | | | Nora Escoms 
Argentina
Local time: 09:46
English to Spanish
+ ...
| Emglish is a crazy language | Mar 18, 2002 |
Rick:
Ths was mostly taken from a series of excellent articles by Richard Lederer. You can find them (as well as many other hilarious pieces) in his website(http://pw1.netcom.com/~rlederer/archive.htm)
Enjoy them!
| | | | | Read "Mother Tongue" | Mar 18, 2002 |
.. by Bill Bryson. It\'s hilarious!
| | | | | English adopted as the preferred language for European communications | Mar 30, 2002 |
The European Union commissioners have announced that agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for European communications, rather than German, which was the other possibility.
As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty\'s Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phased plan for what will be known as EuroEnglish (Euro for short).
In the first year, \'s\' will be use... See more
The European Union commissioners have announced that agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for European communications, rather than German, which was the other possibility.
As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty\'s Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phased plan for what will be known as EuroEnglish (Euro for short).
In the first year, \'s\' will be used instead of the soft \'c\'.
Sertainly, sivil servants will resieve this news with joy. Also, the hard \'c\' will be replaced with \'k.\' Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan have one less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome \'ph\' will be replaced by \'f\'. This will make words like \'fotograf\' 20 per sent shorter.
In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent \'e\'s in the languag is disgrasful, and they would go.
By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing \'th\' by \'z\' and \'w\' by \'v\'.
During ze fifz year, ze unesesary \'o\' kan be dropd from vords kontaining \'ou\', and similar changes vud of kors; be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.
After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil b no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru.
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