Un aporte de Gustavo Silva (Tremédica)

21 REASONS WHY THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

IS 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; and neither apple nor pine in pineapple.

English muffins weren't invented in England nor 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 works 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, that you
can comb through the annals of history but not a single annal?


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 that 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 ata recital?

Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Let us drive on a parkway and park on
a driveway?

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 burns 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, isn't a race at all). That is why, when stars are out, they are visible, but when lights are out, they are invisible.

Pass this message on to everyone you know so that the gift of English can
be shared.