English is a crazy language.

[Neil D]

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?

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.

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

Crazy language isn't it?

[Neil D]

Some reasons to be grateful if you grew up speaking English:

The bandage was wound around the wound.

The farm was used to produce produce.

The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

We must polish the Polish furniture.

He could lead if he would get the lead out.

The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

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.

When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

I did not object to the object.

The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

They were too close to the door to close it.

The buck does funny things when the does are present.

A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

After a number of Novocain injections, my jaw got number.

Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

I spent last evening evening out a pile of dirt.

[cricket]

In the words of Lerner and Loewe:

Henry: Look at her, a prisoner of the gutter,

Condemned by every syllable she ever uttered.

By law she should be taken out and hung,

For the cold-blooded murder of the English tongue.

Eliza: Aaoooww!

Henry: (imitating her) Aaoooww!

Heaven's! What a noise!

This is what the British population,

Calls an elementary education.

Pickering: Oh,Counsel, I think you picked a poor example. Henry: Did I?

Hear them down in Soho square,

Dropping "h's" everywhere.

Speaking English anyway they like.

You sir, did you go to school?

Man: Wadaya tike me for, a fool?

Henry: No one taught him 'take' instead of 'tike!

Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?

This verbal class distinction, by now,

Should be antique. If you spoke as she does, sir,

Instead of the way you do,

Why, you might be selling flowers, too!

Hear a Yorkshireman, or worse,

Hear a Cornishman converse,

I'd rather hear a choir singing flat.

Chickens cackling in a barn Just like this one!

Eliza: Garn!

Henry: I ask you, sir, what sort of word is that?

It's "Aoooow" and "Garn" that keep her in her place.

Not her wretched clothes and dirty face.

Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?

This verbal class distinction by now should be antique.

If you spoke as she does, sir, Instead of the way you do,

Why, you might be selling flowers, too.

An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him,

The moment he talks he makes some other

Englishman despise him.

One common language I'm afraid we'll never get.

Oh, why can't the English learn to set

A good example to people whose

English is painful to your ears?

The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears.

There even are places where English completely

disappears. In America, they haven't used it for years!

Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?

Norwegians learn Norwegian; the Greeks have taught their

Greek. In France every Frenchman knows

his language fro "A" to "Zed"

The French never care what they do, actually,

as long as they pronounce in properly.

Arabians learn Arabian with the speed of summer lightning.

And Hebrews learn it backwards,

which is absolutely frightening.

But use proper English you're regarded as a freak.

Why can't the English,

Why can't the English learn to speak?

[bevin]

Quote:

---

The French never care what they do, actually,

as long as they pronounce in properly.

---

As someone who was tortured by two years of French at school, I am here to testify that there are languages worse than English...

/Bevin

[Amelia]

At least we dont have to know the sex of our nouns! Or was that verbs? ROFL

[cricket]

In light of a most recent conversation here, I truly feel that my initial "quote" of Lerner and Loewe should be edited. Alas, the time open for editing has expired.

Please read only these words in the quote and disregard all the remaining, harsh and cruel language of the original quote.

In the words of Lerner and Loewe:

But use proper English you're regarded as a freak.