Ducati Sporting Club UK > General > Idle Chat > English language...

[NBs996]

FOUR ALL WHO REED AND RIGHT

We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes;
but the plural of ox became oxen not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice;
yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,
why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
If I spoke of my foot and show you my feet,
and I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
why should n't the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and three would be those,
yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
and the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
but though we say mother, we never say methren.

Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
but imagine the feminine, she, shis and shim.

Some other reasons to be grateful if you grew up
speaking English:

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) At the Army base, a bass was painted on the head of a
bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into t he 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 Novocain 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?
22) I spent last evening evening out a pile of dirt.

Screwy pronunciations can mess up your mind! For
example . If you have a rough cough, climbing can be tough
when going through the bough
on a tree!

Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There
is no egg in egg plant nor ham in hamburger;
neither apple nor pine in pineapple.

English muffins weren't invented in England.

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?

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 folks who grew up speaking
English should be committed to an
asylum for the verbally insane.

In what other language do people recite at a play and play
at a recital? Ship by truck and send carg o 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.

If Dad is Pop, how's come Mom isn't Mop?

[kwikbitch]

Try and teach the barsteward...
Do you know your grapheme from your phoneme and your long and short vowel phonemes.
What about your consonant clusters?... your CVCs and your CVCCs?
Then there's the tenses...your masculine's and feminine's, perfect, past and present, plu-perfect....nouns. pronouns, adjectives and connectives.
Oh sod it! I'm going to find a job at TESCOs!

[NBs996]

behave lisa! Am I s'posed to know what all that means?



get me a Tesco application, I think I'd make a good checkout girl.

[kwikbitch]

Originally posted by NBs996


get me a Tesco application, I think I'd make a good checkout girl.

Bet you'd look good in a skirt...How yooo doin' (said in a Joey style voice! )

[Jools]

Ahhh... but now all those examples would be American English wouldn't they. American English, a complete oxymoron.

In this fair sceptred isle we call Little Britain, a dove would have dived into the bushes...certainly not dove!

Actually, I have nothing against the way that our American cousins use out native tongue in all but one respect. I can't stand the way they see fit to change nouns into verbs, some of these set my teeth on edge. The one that really makes me cringe is 'snacking'...urrrggghhh...why does anyone use that word, are people really so lazy that they can't say "I'm having a snack"

[gasmanrus]

dont 4get wen u txt u av 2 rite lik dis innit
l8ers m8

[kwikbitch]

Originally posted by Jools


Actually, I have nothing against the way that our American cousins use out native tongue in all but one respect. I can't stand the way they see fit to change nouns into verbs, some of these set my teeth on edge. The one that really makes me cringe is 'snacking'...urrrggghhh...why does anyone use that word, are people really so lazy that they can't say "I'm having a snack"

Do you know the one that really makes me wanna smack someone????
Hotting up!
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
It's heating up...Heating up I say!
Our blinkin weather people use it now and it drives me bonkers!...It's not in the oxford english...and is BAD Grammar!