|
|
Can
you read these right the first time?
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.
PS. - Why doesn't
"Buick"
rhyme with "quick"
You lovers of the English language might enjoy this.
There is a two-letter word that perhaps
has more meanings than any other two-letter word,
and that is
UP.
It's easy to understand
UP,
meaning
toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when
we awaken in the morning, why do we wake
UP?
At a meeting, why does a topic come
UP?
Why do we speak
UP
and why are the officers
UP
for election and why is it
UP
to the secretary to write
UP
a report?
We call
UP
our friends. And we use it to brighten
UP
a room, polish
UP
the silver, we warm
UP
the leftovers and clean
UP
the kitchen. We lock
UP
the house and some guys fix
UP
the old car . At other times the little word has
real special meaning. People stir
UP
trouble, line
UP
for tickets, work
UP
an appetite, and think
UP
excuses. To be dressed is one thing but to be
dressed
UP
is special.
And
this
UP
is confusing: A drain must be opened
UP
because it is stopped
UP.
We open
UP
a store in the morning but we close it
UP
at night.
We seem to be pretty mixed
UP
about
UP!
To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of
UP,
look the word
UP
in the
dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes
UP
almost 1/4th of the page and can add
UP
to about thirty
definitions. If you are
UP
to it, you might try building
UP
a list of the many ways
UP
is used. It will take
UP
a lot of your time, but if you don't give
UP,
you may wind
UP
with a hundred or more. When it threatens to rain,
we say it is clouding
UP.
When the sun comes out we say it is clearing
UP.
When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes
things
UP.
When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry
UP.
One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it
UP
, for now my time is
UP
, so ........... time to shut
UP
.....!
|