The English language - yet again

[LONDONER]

Homographs are words of like spelling but with more than one meaning.
A homograph that is also pronounced differently is a heteronym.

You'd like to think English is easy??
Read all the way to the end...
This took a lot of work to put together!

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 for me 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? And what do pistons do? 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 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'?

[TwisttheLeaf]

[Gideon]

And don't forget to drive on the parkway and park in the driveway

[Steve]

This made me laugh Londoner and I'm grateful for it. I just copied it and sent it to my partner who is sort of a stickler for proper grammar and will get a kick out of it (getting a kick out of an idea is funny, while receiving a kick hurts, unless, of course, you get a kick up in pay grade). Now you should try a comparison between the Queen's English, and American English. That can drive any of us absolutely mental ...crazy....

:confused: :biggrin:

[MikeW]

The wind is blowing as I wind the clock.
The learned have learned to tell the difference between the two.
How many minutes does it take to assess a minute problem?
To bow to his king he had to lay his bow to the side.
How can you read this now if you've read it already?
I had to crane my neck to watch the crane land on the crane.
I like to eat dates when I'm on a date but only on certain dates.
Did you know you can wrap your leftovers in foil while foiling a plot?
He leaves me as the leaves are falling.
If its right to make a right turn, what's left when you turn left?
It was a big deal to deal with the dealer from whom he'd gotten a raw deal.
The suitor pressed his suit before the court while his suit was being pressed by the tailor.

[bilkiba]

nor ham in hamburger;

The hamburger is so called for it's suspected origins in Hamburg, Germany. Has nothing to do with ham.

I could explain some of the others too, as a person who studies the language in depth at university, but I won't bore you all with the grammar stuff... suffice it to say that language evolves and changes, and that is the cause of most of these oddities.

[yesterday]

The English language is indeed a unique language.