What's a "whack"?

Peggy · Post by **Peggy** » Tue May 09, 2006 10:29 am

REASONS WHY THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IS SO DIFFICULT 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.
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, nor were French fries invented 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 writerswrite,
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 an 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.

P.S. Why doesn't "Buick" rhyme with "quick" Why do we say something is
out of whack? What's a whack?

kate_ce1995 · Post by **kate_ce1995** » Tue May 09, 2006 1:55 pm

Did you know that the average english word can be interpreted 28 different ways?

Random trivia learned in a communications lecture at a recent professional seminar I attended.

Katy

artteacher · Post by **artteacher** » Tue May 09, 2006 2:59 pm

Hi Peggy,

I love your post. The best class I took in all my college life was "History of the English Language". Because of it, I think some of those puzzles you mention exist because we still have Latin, French, Gaellic, & Norwegian words (among just some) all mixed together, and refined or simplified over time. Lots of the weird spellings reflect it - like "knight" and "light" used to be pronounced 'ka-nygcht' and 'lygcht' in pre-Shakespearean England. (Like you're clearing your throat) One of these days they will probably be simplified further to be spelled like they sound - nite and lite. I think you can see that already happening when you see ads for "Bud Lite". The different endings in the names of towns (like Williamsburg, Eddingtonton, Smallville) reflect the nationalality of the originating populace or period of time. Not that I can remember which ending reflects which nationality. The class was a while ago. Now I remember just enough to be dangerous.

Anyway, nice to be back! The work is done in our house, and we're at the stage where the workers come back to fix what they broke while fixing things.

Love, Marsha

Mars · Post by **Mars** » Tue May 09, 2006 4:33 pm

Marsha! Glad to see you again - you are missed when you aren't around!

Love,
Mars

annie oakley · Post by **annie oakley** » Tue May 09, 2006 5:54 pm

How Funny! Love Oma

Polly · Post by **Polly** » Tue May 09, 2006 6:11 pm

Hey there Pegster!!!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I LOVE things like this!!! I have printed it out to save. Thanks for a great post, m'dear. Matthew will love it too, I'll bet.

Love,

Polly

Matthew · Post by **Matthew** » Tue May 09, 2006 8:01 pm

It’s a wonder that with all the vagaries of the English language that we can communicate at all. Thanks Peggy for the amusement all over again. So many new things to discover here are a few ideas.

For anyone interested in words and language you might enjoy checking out

http://wordsmith.org/awad/index.html

Where you can log on and check out a new word every day or receive it in your e-mail by clicking on “Subscriber Services”.

Have no fear if you get sick of it the unsubscribe really does work.

Language is just as much a puzzle as saduko.

Or with all the expanding space technology you also might like to take a look at our ever expanding universe at “Astronomy Picture of the Day”

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

My best

Matthew