I love the English language....

[Admiral of the Humber]

We have some wonderful words in the English language.

One of my favourites is lickspittle.

Regards
Rob aka AOTH

[HK phooey]

Admiral, I was about to gleefully submit my favourite word, which is discombobulate, when I detected a subtext. What the bloody what has gone on then?

[Not so ancient mariner]

Not just the words, but the language itself. e.g. what do you do after you've chopped down a tree? - you chop it up of course!

[Silver_Shiney]

don't forget the oxymorons:

now then

good grief

Labour government

[barney]

Ditto, you guys.

I love English and I'm actually doing a CELTA course at the moment, learning to teach English to students whose first language is not English.

20 weeks and very intense but highly enjoyable all the same.

I'm hoping that it could be a nice little part time earner after I've retired from my job.

I can use it in the UK or alternatively, abroad. Quite Fancy Malta or Northern Cyprus.

[Peter D]

Something I came across a while back.

WHY ENGLISH IS SO DIFFICULT ---

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 shouldn'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 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 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 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 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?

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 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 wiseguy 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, across the ages, and it reflects the creativity of the human race (which, of course, isn't a race at all).

That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

[sumdumbloke]

don't forget the oxymorons:

now then

good grief

Labour government

military intelligence?

[Meg 50]

I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you
On hiccough, thorough, slough, and through.
Well don't! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps.
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard but sounds like bird.
And dead: it's said like bed, not bead,
For goodness sake don't call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt).
A moth is not a moth as in mother
Nor both as in bother, nor broth as in brother,
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear, for bear and pear.
And then there's dose and rose and lose--
Just look them up--and goose and choose
And cork and work and card and ward
And font and front and word and sword
And do and go, then thwart and cart,
Come, come! I've hardly made a start.
A dreadful Language? Why man alive!
I learned to talk it when I was five.
And yet to write it, the more I tried,
I hadn't learned it at fifty-five.

[Meg 50]

freeze/frozen..

sneeze.....
squeeze......

[oldbluefox]

George Bernard Shaw and 'ghoti'

gh as in cough
o as in women
ti as in lotion
hence fish?

or is it entirely silent?
gh as in though
o as in people
t as in ballet
i as in business

Now work out how you get the word potato from 'Ghoughpteighbteau'

[jay-ell71]

What has always mystified me is how those whose first language is not English, ever learn to speak English fluently.

Conversely, why is it that we, whose first language is English, are so very poor at learning other languages if they are so much simpler than our own?????

[Meg 50]

Now work out how you get the word potato from 'Ghoughpteighbteau'

'Ghoughp = poe ( though I have no idea why)

teighb = tay

teau' = toe

[oldbluefox]

Well done Meg. It's not an easy one but thanks to the wonders of Wikipedia................

gh, pronounced /p/ as in hiccough
ough, pronounced /oʊ/ as in though
pt, pronounced /t/ as in ptomaine
eigh, pronounced /eɪ/ as in neigh
bt, pronounced /t/ as in debt
eau, pronounced /oʊ/ as in bureau