Reasons why the English language is so hard 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?

22) It only took a minute to remove the minute speck of dust from his eye.

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 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

Ya, easy for you to say. haha

What a brain twister. If that made any other English speaking person put on their thinking cap as much as I had to, I'll bet them there foreigners were taking some Exedrin after that barrage of phonetic atrocities.

I think out of all the languages out there that German must be the easiest to deal with. Everything that they pronounce is spelled out in each word. Of course some of their words have 36 letters in them which is more than our alphabet.

Another interesting point. When our national language was voted on, German lost out by only one vote. Makes one wonder what our relationship with Germany would have been in the past if we had a common language.

How about it Sheriff, would you agree on my assumption? Would it be safe to say that all Germans have perfect spelling?

Scott

[This message has been edited by Scott Langholff (edited 06-04-2005).]

Me still speak english not good. Me try but it hard!

Phil

Yes! All Germans have a perfect spelling...hahaha
That's the reason why we have a new DUDEN (the spell book of the German language). The Profs of the German language declared that it was too hard to learn for our children...
Uh, what a fake because as I was a child I had to learn it, as my parents were children they had to learn it, as my grand parents were children...

I know we had lost our old script typing called 'Sytterlin' (it was the real German typing in earlier centuries). My grand parents still learned it at school!!!
Oh, and since the last world war the Germans are always looking at America and getting all new spellings and mannerisms from there. And that's really funny because it seems that the Americans love the German culture as much as the Germans love the American culture. And if the Americans would speak German today instead of English then these cultures would be more coadunated with another, I think so.
Oh, by the way, is it true that the English language had won by the advantage of only one voice? I've heard about it but I've thought it was only a rumour...
And, also, I'm thinking that they didn't let the Indians make their choice...

Hm, in some cases the German language is one of the hardest language to learn. We have the ability to change words inside a sentence in many different ways. They are all grammatical correct but not all constructions are really giving a sense. Some word constellations are unused since 50 years or more and so they sound very 'old' to us.
Maybe it's a little bit similar to those English constructions like "Thou art a finest man with thy good minds!". How many men will you find today who are talking in that way? You'll still understand those sentences but you would look very strange to that man, wouldn't you?

Another example is German spoken by a Frankfurter. This kind of German sometimes sounds English and sometimes sounds French but nevertheless it's still German.

An English sounding example: "Dess iss net nett!"
Real German: "Das ist nicht nett!"
This means: "This is not nice!"
Both sentences are sounding nearly equal!

An French sounding example: "Atschöö!"
Real German: "Tschüß!"
This means: "Adieu!"
Both words are really sounding equal!

And, since the keyword has fallen, I now say good bye...

------------------
Greetings from Frankfurt (Germany),
Sheriff ;-)

Hey Sheriff

No wonder they changed that old Guttenberg print. The "I" and the "J" both looked like a "J"!

We were taught in school that German lost by only one vote. Ben Franklin the kite flyer was supposed to be the major proponent for it.

I believe the Quaker's or Pennsylvania Dutch still say thee, thy and thou. 'Course the Pennsylvania Dutch was really the Pennsylvania Deutsch, but, hey, it's America, what would you expect?

If I heard somebody go "Atschöö!" I'd say gesundheit!

Reminds me of a cartoon I saw where an American was in a German restuarant. He asked a man sitting there if he spoke English and the German said "nein". Then they sat there for awhile and the American sneezed and the German said "gesundheit". The American looked at the German and said, "I thought you said you didn't speak English." (That was a killer wasn't it?)

Scott

Yep! And the "s" looks like a "f", and some more special effects. But this will only trainee your eyes - discover the little differences!!!


Benjamin Franklin? Wasn't he one of the presidents of the United States somewhere in the 19th century?


...and you would view slightly alienated to that man...


That's the main reaction of all German non-Frankfurters too. But the most people in our surrounding (Taunus, Wiesbaden, Mainz, Hanau) have learned to understand us...

I would go one step forward and declare "Frankfurterisch" as the new high German speech because it's more international...

[This message has been edited by Sheriff (edited 06-05-2005).]

Hey Sheriff

Ben Franklin wasn't a president but was probably most known for helping draft the Declaration of Independence (from England) and "discovering" electricity when he flew a kite during a thunder storm with a key attached to the string. He was lucky he wasn't electrocuted.
http://www.ushistory.org/franklin/index.htm

He's on our $100 bills.
http://www.moneyfactory.com/section.cfm/4/32



[This message has been edited by Scott Langholff (edited 06-06-2005).]

I happened to think of a question on High German (Hoch Deutsch) and Low German (Platt Deutsch).

I've heard 2 different stories on this. I heard that High German was spoken in the mountainous regions and Low German was spoken in the low lands.

I also heard the High German was spoken by the upper class and nobility while Low German was spoken by the common people or low class people.

So, Sheriff, what's the real deal on this one?? Inquiring minds want to know. hehe

Scott

A little late, should have posted it right after Nardoni's post, but here you go:

> The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water
> temperature isn't just how you like it,
> think about how things used to be.
> Here are some facts about the 1500s:

> These are interesting.
> Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May,
> and still smelled pretty good by June.
> However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers
> to hide the body odor.
> Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

> Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had
> the privilege of the nice clean water, then
> all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of
> all the babies. By then the water was so
> dirty you could actually lose someone in it.
> Hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water."

> Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath.
> It was the only place for animals to get warm,
> so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When
> it rained it became slippery and sometimes the
> animals would slip off the roof. Hence the saying: "It's raining cats and
> dogs."

> There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a
> real problem in the bedroom where bugs and
> other droppings could mess up our nice clean bed.
> Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some
> protection. That's how canopy beds came into
> existence. The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than
> dirt. Hence the saying "dirt poor."

> The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet,
> so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help
> keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they adding more thresh until
> when you opened the door it would all start slipping
> outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entranceway. Hence the saying a
> "thresh hold."

> In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always
> hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and
> added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much
> meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving
> leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day.
> Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there
> for quite a while. Hence the rhyme, "Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold,
> peas porridge in the pot nine days old."

> Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When
> visitors came over, they would hang up their
> bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could "bring home the
> bacon." They would cut off a little to share with
> guests and would all sit around and "chew the fat."

> Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content
> caused some of the lead to leach onto the food,
> causing lead poisoning death.
> This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so,
> tomatoes were considered poisonous.

> Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the
> loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the
> top, or "upper crust."

> Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes
> knock the imbibers out for a couple of days.
> Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for >
> burial. They were laid out on the kitchen
> table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and
> drink and wait and see if they would wake up.
> Hence the custom of holding a "wake."

> England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places
> to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and
> would take the bones to a "bone-house" and reuse the grave. When reopening
> these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found
> to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying
> people alive.
> So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the
> coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell.
> Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the "graveyard
> shift") to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be
> "saved by the bell" or was considered a "dead ringer."

Got it on the mail, don't know if it is entirely true, but it is funny anyway.

hi trident, i found this info really interesting,my history was never any good,when i was a kid we had a saying which was similar,ie peas pudding hot, peas pudding cold etc,its nice to know where our sayings came from,mike