English is such a strange and inconsistent language...

[W2DR]

 English is such a strange and inconsistent language... e.g.,

 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 other 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.
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.

 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 other 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.

 If Dad is Pop, how's come Mom isn't Mop?
 

[Rodger Pettichord]

Doug, years ago I was an advisor to foreign students at Washington State University. Your poem pretty much encapsulates their feelings about struggling to learn English. To, too, two, toot!

[Ken Q]

From my Grandpa:

A fly and a flea and a flue were in prison.  "Lets fly" said the flea! So the flew through a flaw in the flue.

 

Ken

[boetie]

I have so much respect for people whose/who's (see what I did there?) second language is English. Many are on this English forum. Many of us whose native language is English struggle with it!

Cheers 

Graeme

[gumbypickett]

What was the question?

cheers

Gumby

[Nick Cooper]

Hello,
many of us who were born in England have difficult following what has been done to "English" by others
who alleged that English is their first language. 

[W2DR]

2 hours ago, Nick Cooper said:

Hello,
many of us who were born in England have difficult following what has been done to "English" by others
who alleged that English is their first language. 

The first time we visited England (we're from The Colonies) I realized that you don't speak no good English over there 😄. 

[gumbypickett]

27 minutes ago, W2DR said:

The first time we visited England (we're from The Colonies) I realized that you don't speak no good English over there 😄. 

I have to agree, they seem to drop letters from words

and a lot, I can't understand what they are saying. They

seem to talk like they have colds. But I'm not picking, even some of

us Aussies sound like we are outback yahoo drongos.

Plz take no offence.🤬

cheers

Gumby

[John Burgess]

Brilliant topic, what a strange and peculiar tongue!

 

What's being missed here is what a wonderful, expressive and varied language English is.

 

Okay so, on occasion, it might not obey any restrictive rules but, hey, who likes obeying rules like that anyway. Stifles creativity 

 

That said I was once on holiday in France. Went down to the bakery for the morning baguette. Ended up in a discussion which was about (as far as I could tell) which was the most lyrical language - French or Italian. English wasn't mentioned!

 

As for you colonials - I once heard it said that Shakespear had an American accent and that was the original way that Engish was spoke.

Then again my spellchecker just told me I mis-spelt Shakespear so, who knows 

 

Apparently he spelt his name in several different ways. Creativity - that's what matters 

 

All the best,

 

John

 

[Stillwater]

On 4/16/2024 at 7:29 AM, boetie said:

I have so much respect for people whose/who's (see what I did there?) second language is English. Many are on this English forum. Many of us whose native language is English struggle with it!

Cheers 

Graeme

I am here, mate!

[Stillwater]

19 hours ago, gumbypickett said:

I have to agree, they seem to drop letters from words

and a lot, I can't understand what they are saying. They

seem to talk like they have colds. But I'm not picking, even some of

us Aussies sound like we are outback yahoo drongos.

Plz take no offence.🤬

cheers

Gumby

Just some recent experience:

I was in Englang (Nottingham) over Easter, and could not understand some of the guys there (neither could my co-travellers).

I was in Oz two weeks before and could understand them well.

How comes? Has the Brexit made the English to leave common language as well?

[John Heaton]

Born and bred in the North of England - the County Palatine of Lancashire - and still retain the accent of my birth

- despite living in Australia for the past 54 years but Aussies have no problems with it.

 

Just for a larf - recently - on the other main forum - I was chastised by an American bloke -for miss use of English grammar

when I write in that forum

[wolfko]

1 hour ago, John Heaton said:

Born and bred in the North of England - the County Palatine of Lancashire - and still retain the accent of my birth

- despite living in Australia for the past 54 years but Aussies have no problems with it.

 

Just for a larf - recently - on the other main forum - I was chastised by an American bloke -for miss use of English grammar

when I write in that forum

 

I had to look up the meaning of "chastised".😀 

And the forum's spell check doesn't seem to know the word either. 😄 

 

That confirms the topic's title is right.

 

PS: Edit because of bad grammar and spelling.

 

 

Edited April 17 by wolfko

[gumbypickett]

3 hours ago, Stillwater said:

Just some recent experience:

I was in Englang (Nottingham) over Easter, and could not understand some of the guys there (neither could my co-travellers).

I was in Oz two weeks before and could understand them well.

How comes? Has the Brexit made the English to leave common language as well?

And for you Gerold I had no probs understanding you.

Eezy peezy.

Stillwater restaurant next week for lunch, I'll organise.🍻

cheers

Gumby

[John Heaton]

4 hours ago, wolfko said:

 

I had to look up the meaning of "chastised".😀 

And the forum's spell check doesn't seem to know the word either. 😄 

 

That confirms the topic's title is right.

 

PS: Edit because of bad grammar and spelling.

 

 

"Maybe you should have looked a little further" - consider your self - "Chastised"

chastised

In English, many past and present participles of verbs can be used as adjectives. Some of these examples may show the adjective use.

In both cases, modernist music is chastised for the bias of its critical representations.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Her "vanity" in wanting independence is chastised through a marriage based on her dependency.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The father was chastised by the court for taking his daughter as a 'commodity to be owned' rather than as a person and as an individual.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Other demographic considerations aside, we felt ourselves minorities,

 

I deliberately misspelt the word - and wha"da know - spell check corrected it

Edited April 17 by John Heaton

[Stillwater]

6 hours ago, gumbypickett said:

Stillwater restaurant next week for lunch, I'll organise.🍻

In that case the lunch will be cheaper than my transfer. Which is not often the case given Stillwater´s pricing...😉

[wain71]

I think the problem we have is for such a small group of Countries we have so many different accents and lots of local words and sayings, also I find some English people when abroad are very lazy, they start to get louder thinking they will be understood, I find that very rude.....when I lived in Berlin in the 80's I got by with very basic German, but the locals appreciated my trying's and usual failings and usually were very helpful...

 

I have a relation who's from Newcastle and if she starts talking with her sister or family I struggle, we visit family in Cork area and I'm okay but the wife is completely lost...so it's not just visitors to the UK...

 

do you have regional accents down under?  I know you have some varied one's in the US, also in parts of EU like Spain, France & Germany do they have local words not used in other parts of the country?....

 

I think anyone learning English has done well when you consider things like - weather - whether - there - their- .....mind you I could never understand which of these to use - Der , Die or Das....