I miss you Sam!!

I miss you Sam!!
I miss you Sam!!

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

How About This English Lesson for the Day!!



This is a tad long, but SO worth the read!!!  Enjoy!


Heteronyms...


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? 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 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?

How can a slim
chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy 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.

English was
invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human
race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are
out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are
invisible..

PS. - Why doesn't
Buick'; rhyme with quick'?


You lovers of the
English language might enjoy this.

There is a
two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word,
and that is

UP.

It's easy to
understand 
UP, meaning
toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning,
why do we wake UP?

At a meeting, why
does a topic come UP?

Why do we
speak UP and why are
the officers UP for election and
why is it UP to the secretary
to write UP a
report?

We
call UP our
friends.

And we use it to
brighten UP a room,
polish UP the silver; we
warm UP the leftovers and
clean UP the
kitchen.

We
lock UP the house and
some guys fix UP the old
car.

At other times
the little word has real special meaning.

People
stir UP trouble,
line UP for tickets,
work UP an appetite, and
think UPexcuses.

To be dressed is
one thing, but to be dressed UP is
special..

A drain must be
opened UP because it is
stopped UP.

We
open UP a store in the
morning but we close it UP at
night.

We seem to be
pretty mixed 
UP about UP!

To be
knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the
word UP in the
dictionary.

In a desk-sized
dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of
the page and can add UP to about thirty
definitions.

If you
are UP to it, you might
try building UP a list of the
many ways UP is
used.

It will
take UP a lot of your
time, but if you don't give UP, you may
wind UP with a
hundred or more.

When it threatens
to rain, we say it is clouding UP.

When the sun
comes out we say it is clearing UP..

When it rains,
it wets the earth and often messes things
 UP.

When it doesn't
rain for a while, things dry
 UP.

One could go on
and on, but I'll wrap it
 UP,

for now my time
is UP,

so.......it is
time to shut UP!

Now
it's UP to you what
you do with this

10 comments:

Yamini MacLean said...

Hari OM
So much valid value here!!! (Though, it might be pointed out that there is English, Indian English, Aussie English, US English... and many would not use up 'UP' quite so much!!!) YAM xx

Hootin Anni said...

Amen to this....I'm up in arms?!!!

EG CameraGirl said...

Entertaining for sure, Sylvia. I am so glad I grew UP speaking English. Otherwise I probably would never have learned to speak or understand it.

lotusleaf said...

Up until now, English seemed easy to me!To sum up, English is still growing up.

PerthDailyPhoto said...

When you read things like this Sylvia you realize why foreign students consider English so difficult :) Maybe I shouldn't have given UP my French classes :)

Sami said...

Very entertaining indeed. For the non-English speaking it can be a complicated language, but then I think most languages have their intricacies.

Jo said...

Oh Sylvia, you always deliver! Great post about a great language! Enjoy your day. Jo

Jack said...

Is there partial credit for getting a quarter of the way through?

Linda said...

Oh dear! I am overwhelmed!

Sallie (FullTime-Life) said...

My favorite kind of humor! This is great.

What Can I Say?

What Can I Say?
I'm interested in almost everything. Use to like to travel, but it's too expensive now. I take Tai Chi classes, swim, volunteer in a Jump-start program for pre-schoolers. I'm an avid reader and like nearly everyone these days I follow politics avidly. I'm a former teacher and Special Projects Coordinator for a Telecommunications company, Assistant to the President of a Japanese silicon wafer manufacturing company. Am now enjoying retirement -- most of the time. I have two daughters, one son-in-law and two sons scattered all over the country. No grandchildren.

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