BleepingComputer.com: Getting Tense Over Tenses

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.
Anonymous

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) There is no time like the present, he said it was time to present the present.
Cool 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.
1Cool 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.

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?

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 come! Mom isn't Mop?

GO FIGURE! That's American English.

I pity myself.

I pity tha foo.

Am I ever eternally grateful that I do not have to learn English.

Yes this explains alot... i can't state some of it @ this site

English is still the best language. Spanish is confusing! Not to mention those other languages.

'Solaris32' That is a biosed opinion if ever I heard one.It's the best language because it's probably your native tongue,and if not,it's the language you understand better.Other Languages are only confusing because we don't speak them daily.
The best sounding language,although I dont speak it,to me is French.
My wife's native tongue is German,and their 'Umlauts' and Word 'Genders' I find confusing,only because I don't fully understand the language. Mind you I have learnt some curse words.LOL.

This post has been edited by DSTM: 14 July 2007 - 01:05 AM

I love the Japanese language, I wish I could understand it better. English is my native tongue and learning/memorizing the first 2 alphabets (hiragana and katakana, at 44 characters each), only a very rudimentary understanding of grammar, adjectives, and vocabulary, plus maybe 25 characters of the 3rd and last alphabet (which have up to 5 meanings each) took me 3 years!

Just thankfull,I wasn't born Chinese.

http://www.zhongwen.com/

EDIT. I also have heard that a lot of people like the Japanese Language.'taz88' Don't know a thing about it myself.

This post has been edited by DSTM: 14 July 2007 - 02:17 AM

DSTM, on Jul 14 2007, 01:59 AM, said:

thousands of characters 0.o

the Japanese alphabets:
the first one, hiragana, is used for words originating in japan. sometimes untranslatable using only one word. eg. "hajishimashite" = "greetings, we are meeting for the first time."
the second one katakana, is used to spell words from other languages eg. "ai-su ku-ri-mu" = "ice cream"
the third one, kanji uses characters from Cantonese.

there, now you know something

This post has been edited by tazz88: 14 July 2007 - 02:42 AM

We have had our first lesson in Japanese.

This post has been edited by DSTM: 14 July 2007 - 08:56 AM

Konichiwa ! I read "somewhere" that Japanese is the hardest language for English speakers to learn as English is hardest for the Japanese to learn.
an example of why English is so hard to learn " Well now, You certainly look well for somebody who has fallen down a well. "

If you really want to get confused with the English Language, try this link.

http://www.wordfiles.info/confusing-word-lists.html

DSTM, on Jul 13 2007, 11:04 PM, said:

It was supposed to be biased lol. Also a slight joke for the reason you explained. There's really no "best" language. I just only know how to speak english with all its paradoxes .

I thought about learning to speak English once, but I could never get used saying "boot" and "bonnet" instead of "trunk" and "hood" ( not to mention "Aluminium" vs. "Aluminum" )