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vor
Citizen
Username: Vor
Post Number: 183
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, February 14, 2004 - 12:11 am: |     |
Here is some sillyness, some of it is silly, some of you no doubt saw before, but it's fun anyway.
THE USAGE OF ENGLISH
BELOW IS A BRAIN SCRAMBLER EXPLAINING THE USAGE OF ENGLISH
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.
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. 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 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.
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Gene Z
Citizen
Username: Genez
Post Number: 4
Registered: 2-2002
| | Posted on Monday, February 16, 2004 - 3:02 pm: | |
Vor,
Hmmmmmm; I'll ponder those while driving on the parkway, and parking in my driveway.
B-)
Z |
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