The English Language!
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Have you ever wondered why foreigners have trouble with the English Language?
Let's face it, English is a language where, there is no egg in the eggplant.
No ham in the hamburger, and neither pine nor apple in the pineapple!
English muffins were not invented in England.
French fries were not invented in France.We sometimes take English for granted.
But if we examine its paradoxes we find that, quicksand takes you down slowly,
Boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.If writers write, how come fingers don't fing!
If the plural of tooth is teeth, shouldn't the plural of phone booth be phone beeth!
If the teacher taught, why didn't the preacher praught.If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what the heck does a humanitarian eat!?
Why do people recite at a play yet play at a recital?
Park on driveways and drive on parkwaysYou have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language where a house can burn up as
It burns down...
And in which you fill in a form by filling it out
And a bell is only heard once it goes!English was invented by people, not computers, 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
And why it is that when I wind up my watch, it starts.
But when I wind up this observation, it ends....
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That's great stuff Frederick
I was glad to understand all of it, even when my native language is Dutch. -
English is a cobbled together language as the English are more that happy to adopt words from other languages if it suits (unlike the French).
Then of course there's
English English,
American English
Australian English
South African English
Etc, etc ... -
I speak a bit english. So I can let you know my opinion about how difficult is.
I don't know what a eggplant is. Probably if you plant an egg, it gives you chickens
You write Shakespeare, but a spanish pronounces it "sekspir" (¿¿¿???)
If someone suddenly begins to speak to you something like "marrugeision jolliguan weingüidins ojara disbroken maraguichis okei", you have two possibilities:
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He is speaking in english.
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He is drunk.
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Both previous at the same time.
I have discovered that my english pronunciation is much better when I put inside my mouth one or two stones
I hope it helps to find a better way to teach english.
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"English doesn't just borrow words from other languages; it follows them down dark alleyways, knocks them unconscious, then rifles their pockets for loose vocabulary."
James D. NicollHere's part of a fascinating/hilarious clip from the TV series Mongrel Nation, in which Eddy Izzard goes over to Friesland on the basis that if he speaks Old English then the Frieslanders ought to be able to understand him 'cause that's were many of the English originally came from. He's attempting to buy a little brown cow.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=OeC1yAaWG34 -
my two favourite english words are:
Doppelgänger and Schadenfreude
...because these are so typical German words that it sounds riddiculous, if they appear in an english sencence
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This thread is soooooo zeitgeisty!
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right you are Jackson. and it makes me feel terrible Weltschmerz
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Jakob, my Doppelganger thanks you for the Schadenfreude induced by your Weltschmertz.
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you sounded almost German, Alan
now, if your Doppelgänger encounters a Poltergeist in a Kindergarten, eating Bratwurst with Sauerkraut - well that would be quite a Gedankenexperiment!
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I'm from Liverpool, so I much prefer Scouse to Sauerkraut. Now there's a word that's gone the other way....even if it is spelt Labskaus.
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if we are to really examine the idiosyncrasies, then i think now would be a good time to bring up the subject of the serial (aka oxford) comma.
this is a far better and more concise explaination that i could ever come up with.
pav
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@plot-paris said:
right you are Jackson. and it makes me feel terrible Weltschmerz
Some Gestalt therapy'll work wonders.
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Well, I speak english, however the serial comma explanation on Wikipedia was somewhere over my head. In fact it was out in orbit over my head. We are making progress though. Consider the period: three sylables to identify a single small point. Now, it is no longer a period; it is a "dot" - isn't that better? And the elegant asterisk has been elevated to a star (speaking of extraterrestrial things).
That's all I have to say about that.
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LOl.
Welcome Steve.
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@alan fraser said:
I'm from Liverpool, so I much prefer Scouse to Sauerkraut. Now there's a word that's gone the other way....even if it is spelt Labskaus.
but the word Labskaus will only be farmiliar to people living in the very north of Germany...
I am from the south, hence I prefer Sauerkraut.
but back to English Language: I came to London because I love the sound of British Englis. Only I discovered that there are so many different accents it is barely justified to speak of a British English (my 30 colleagues speak almost 30 different accents!)
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Thank you, Pete. Still fumbling around this website - feeling kind of primitive and ignorant, but having a good time.
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I am reminded of the wisdom of the Great Ralph Wiggam. . .
Me Fail English? That's Unpossible!
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@frederik said:
Have you ever wondered why foreigners have trouble with the English Language?;)
Why are a wise man and a wise guy opposites?
Why do overlook and oversee mean opposite things?
Why do women wear evening gowns to nightclubs? Shouldn't they be wearing nightgowns?
Why isn't 11 pronounced onety-one? -
@unknownuser said:
@frederik said:
Why isn't 11 pronounced onety-one?
i can actually answer this one.
because it isn't spelt O-N-E-T-Y O-N-E, it's spelt E-L-E-V-E-N
and thus prounouncing it this way would make no sense...he he
pav
(i await people posting words that aren't spelt the way are pronounced!)
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