1. There is no egg in eggplant or ham in hamburger;
neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
2. English muffins were not invented in England or
french fries in France.
3. Sweetmeats are candies, while sweetbreads, which
aren't sweet, are meat.
4. 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.
5. And why is it that writers write, but fingers don't fing, grocers
don't groce, and hammers don't ham?
6. 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, two indices?
Is cheese the plural of choose?
7. If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?
8. If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
9. In what language do people recite at a play, and play at a recital?
10. Ship by truck and send cargo by ship?
11. Have noses that run and feet that smell?
12. Park on driveways and drive on parkways?
13. How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,
while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
14. How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold
as hell another?
15. When a house burns up, it burns down.
16. You fill in a form by filling it out and an alarm clock
goes off by going on.
17. When the stars are out, they are visible, but when the
lights are out, they are invisible?
11 comments:
lol, yes english is weird. I've often thought, who made up all the words we use. There is no logic to them :)
This helps explain why people learning Eng. as a second language may have such difficulty. Idioms really complicate matters for them; also, words pronounced the same but spelled differently and vise versa.
And then there is the difference between English and American English. You say 'pissed' for angry. We say 'pissed off' for angry and to be 'pissed' is to be drunk.
Yes, English is strange but so are the other languages. In German, Stephen says there are words and the only difference is which syllable is emphasized.. and they have vastly different meanings.
It just doesn't make sense. Thank goodness I was born into the language and didn't have to learn it.
Shouldn't progress and congress be opposites?
I love this kind of stuff!
hehe, hamburger is a place in Germany..
Kind of a treat isn't it? English is different too. Between us and them.
Yeah I love these. English is a weird language for sure!
pity the folks learning English!
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