AMBIGUITIES OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE – PART THREE

Most people whose native tongue is English can’t even comprehend how difficult it is for someone to learn the language when faced with so many irregularities, lack of rules and ambiguities…

Most languages have certain rules about spelling that make a lot of sense. There are also very regular vowel and consonant pronunciations and these you can rely on particularly when you see a new word you can pretty much tell how it is pronounced. But English has so many irregularities both in spelling and in pronunciation that there is no clear cut way a person can possibly get it right…you almost always have to guess.

A lot of the learning process is relegated to “TRIBAL KNOLEDGE” since there is no other way to teach the many variations of meaning, usage and popular folklore usage; for example:

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........it is time to shut UP ! 

Oh . . . one more thing:

What is the first thing you do in the morning & the last thing you do at night? U-P