Is english language the worst?
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Taken somewhere on net:
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? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices?
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend, that you comb through annals of history but not a single annal? 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 preacher praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? If you wrote a letter, perhaps you bote your tongue? Sometimes I think all the English speakers 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? Park on driveways and drive on parkways?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike? How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell another.
Have you noticed that we talk about certain things only when they are absent? Have you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful gown? Met a sung hero or experienced requited love? Have you ever run into someone who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable? And where are all those people who ARE spring chickens or who would ACTUALLY hurt a fly?
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 clock goes off by going on.
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, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it.
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? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices?
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend, that you comb through annals of history but not a single annal? 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 preacher praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? If you wrote a letter, perhaps you bote your tongue? Sometimes I think all the English speakers 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? Park on driveways and drive on parkways?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike? How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell another.
Have you noticed that we talk about certain things only when they are absent? Have you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful gown? Met a sung hero or experienced requited love? Have you ever run into someone who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable? And where are all those people who ARE spring chickens or who would ACTUALLY hurt a fly?
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 clock goes off by going on.
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, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it.
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Replies
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Crazy English by Richard Lederer
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I hurt flies! I don't like them in my home.. They're gross.. But I also find fly swatted disgusting so I drown them with the sprayer at my kitchen sink.0
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This is so cool. Bump for later!0
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This is so cool!!! I love this! It made me giggle!! 0
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*Bump*0
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Do people who don't speak english as a first language stuff up basic grammar in their native tongue as bad as English speaking people? It blows my mind that people get his and he's mixed up, then/than, spelling definitely definately, saying would of instead of would have... GAH!0
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English is knows for having rules and many acceptions to those rules. Many of the languages I've studied are like that. English grammar and even spelling can be especially tricky!Do people who don't speak english as a first language stuff up basic grammar in their native tongue as bad as English speaking people? It blows my mind that people get his and he's mixed up, then/than, spelling definitely definately, saying would of instead of would have... GAH!
Anyone else find it extremely entertaining how English words are spelled differently in different countries i.e "color" and "colour"0 -
Do people who don't speak english as a first language stuff up basic grammar in their native tongue as bad as English speaking people? It blows my mind that people get his and he's mixed up, then/than, spelling definitely definately, saying would of instead of would have... GAH!
I sepak 4 languages and find English to be most intuitive and logic. Sure ther are exeptions but not htat many.
Spelling is crazy though0 -
Love this post...as a person with a Bachelor's degree in English I often think about these things and how confused people who are not native speakers of English must get. We really do have some nutty synonyms and homonyms. Like hoe and hoe...one is considered a colloquial curse word and the other a gardening tool...who came up with that one?!0
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I like the words that are spelled the same but sound different in context. Eg I just read a good book. Would you like to read it now?0
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Love this post...as a person with a Bachelor's degree in English I often think about these things and how confused people who are not native speakers of English must get. We really do have some nutty synonyms and homonyms. Like hoe and hoe...one is considered a colloquial curse word and the other a gardening tool...who came up with that one?!
Haha, exactly. After studying extremely systematic languages like Latin and Ancient Greek, I can say that English can be...interesting. But they also have colloquialisms and the like. Granted, it's my first language, so I really have no perspective on it. Still, I do like more inflected languages.0 -
Do people who don't speak english as a first language stuff up basic grammar in their native tongue as bad as English speaking people? It blows my mind that people get his and he's mixed up, then/than, spelling definitely definately, saying would of instead of would have... GAH!
Actually, nope. You tend to find that regular syntax is the first thing that second-language English speakers pick-up - most languages are governed by far more stringent and complex rules, so if anything it's a step down. The only difficulty tends to be irregular verbs, since there's really no way around this but to memorise (interesting sidebar - if a child of around 1-2 years old says "I runned" or similar, it's actually far more encouraging in terms of their linguistic development than if they'd said "I ran" - as it indicates they're subconsciously trying to apply the rules of regular verbs, rather than mimicking an irregular).
Aside from irregular verbs, the main problem tends to be the sheer size of the lexicon - not to mention the number of colloquialisms / dialectical forms / COMPLETELY MADE UP WORDS, and words that become completely different in meaning contextually. I don't envy anyone trying to communicate with a native English speaker who's just starting to pick up the language.0 -
Every language has its own eccentricities, but English has got to be the worse.
red - read, but bed - bead
night and knight
worse but hearse
said but head
led and lead
choose but lose (as in lose weight)
threw and through
drink, drank, drunk - so why not think, thank, thunk?
And I could go on and on.
LOL0 -
I LIKE TXT TLK DA BEST. ITZ E-Z-ER & I DONT HAVE 2 TYPE S0 MUCH, U KNO? PLU$ I CAN @DD REALLY C00L SYMBOLZ AND NUMBRZ 2 MY WERDZ!0
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It's always funny to read these things, especially for those who are not native english speakers.
I can assure you: you can find such odds in every language.
And switching from one language to another is quite difficult sometimes.0 -
fur realz!0
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I speak four languages, including Arabic, and was discussing this with a friend whose native language is Arabic who learned English in school. His opinion is that Arabic is much harder than English with the reasoning that English is hard because it has so many exeptions to the rules, but Arabic is hard because it has so many rules, many of which don't actually serve any useful purpose.
This is something I've heard from other people who learned English as a second language as well. English has incredibly few grammatical rules. It just has a lot of exceptions to learn.
"English doesn't borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleyways and beats them up for pocket change."0 -
Taken somewhere on net:
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? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices?
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend, that you comb through annals of history but not a single annal? 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 preacher praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? If you wrote a letter, perhaps you bote your tongue? Sometimes I think all the English speakers 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? Park on driveways and drive on parkways?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike? How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell another.
Have you noticed that we talk about certain things only when they are absent? Have you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful gown? Met a sung hero or experienced requited love? Have you ever run into someone who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable? And where are all those people who ARE spring chickens or who would ACTUALLY hurt a fly?
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 clock goes off by going on.
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, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it.
No, I don't think it's "the worst." About 90% of your complaints about English are about American colloquialisms. All cultures have colloquialisms. Why single out English; especially saying "Is English the worst?" when your complaints are almost all (but not all) referring to American English? There actually are reasons for all your examples, which make them make sense.
Eggplant: "The eggplant got its name back in 18th century Europe from the farmers who grew them, because some varieties of eggplant actually look like off-white/yellowish goose eggs. The elongated deep purple eggplant is the most common seen in the United States, but Thai eggplants for instance are the same shape, size, and relative color as goose or hen eggs." (answers.com)
Hamburger: "By the middle of the 19th century people in the port city of Hamburg, Germany, enjoyed a form of pounded beef called Hamburg steak. The large numbers of Germans who migrated to North America during this time probably brought the dish and its name along with them. The entrée may have appeared on an American menu as early as 1836, although the first recorded use of Hamburg steak is not found until 1884. The variant form hamburger steak, using the German adjective Hamburger meaning "from Hamburg," first appears in a Walla Walla, Washington, newspaper in 1889. By 1902 we find the first description of a Hamburg steak close to our conception of the hamburger, namely a recipe calling for ground beef mixed with onion and pepper. By then the hamburger was on its way, to be followed-much later-by the shortened form burger, used in forming cheeseburger and the names of other variations on the basic burger, as well as on its own." (answers.com)
Pineapple: "The word pineapple in English was first recorded in 1398, when it was originally used to describe the reproductive organs of conifer trees (now termed pine cones). When European explorers discovered this tropical fruit they called them pineapples (term first recorded in that sense in 1664) because of their resemblance to what is now known as the pine cone. The term pine cone was first recorded in 1694, and was used to replace the original meaning of pineapple." (kitchenproject.com)
English Muffin: Here the word "muffin" is used correctly. It's when those cupcake-shaped things are called "muffins" that the use is technically wrong; those are quick breads, not "muffins." Muffins are yeast breads, and english muffins are, indeed muffins. Everywhere but Great Britain calls these "english muffins." Where the "english" comes in is less clear, but foodreference.com hypothesizes that it might have been that "an inexperienced English immigrant baker's attempt to make crumpets* from a half remembered recipe of his mother's" resulted in the name.
French fries: The most common explanation (and there are many) is that Thomas Jefferson referred to fried strips of potatoes served in the White House as being "served in the French manner" in 1802.
Sweetmeats: Since meat refers to the edible part of most anything (not just animals) and sweetmeats (as you are using it--there are other meanings) were originally cooked confections made from the "meats" of various fruits, what is confusing about this? It is only by assuming meat only means "animal flesh" that there's any inaccuracy.
Sweetbreads: This one actually is a bit unclear, but good, although unsubstantiated, explanations exist. "The word "sweetbread" is first attested in the 16th century, but the etymology of the name is unclear. "Sweet" is perhaps used since the thymus is sweet and rich tasting, as opposed to savory tasting muscle flesh. "Bread" may come from brede 'roasted meat'[6] or from the Old English brǣd ('flesh' or 'meat')." (wikipedia.org)
All of these have explanations, and every SPOKEN language has these. Native speakers of any language recognize them in their own language, while many, if not most, of those who are non-native speakers will not.0 -
Love this post...as a person with a Bachelor's degree in English I often think about these things and how confused people who are not native speakers of English must get. We really do have some nutty synonyms and homonyms. Like hoe and hoe...one is considered a colloquial curse word and the other a gardening tool...who came up with that one?!
Hoe isn't just "considered" a "colloquial curse," it's only actual, dictionary meaning is as a garden implement (noun) or the action of using that implement (verb). "Hoe" as a "curse word" is a mispronunciation of *kitten* and that meaning of "hoe" is entirely colloquial.
I, personally, do not understand why people complain about grammar and spelling "nazis," when correct spelling, grammar and usage are the only way to be clearly understood in any language.0 -
Ah, I love this stuff^^ I can speak 5 languages, currently finishing my bachelor in English Literature (last exam tomorrow
) and will go on to Translation Studies next year. I love doing stuff like this, although at the moment I'm still more interested in spelling & pronunciation (ex. it's a-SPAR-a-gus, but app-a-RA-tus... I entertained my friends with quite some funny pronunciations^^). Gotta love English, it's one of the weirdest, but also one of the most interesting languages. 0
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