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English is a crazy language

Четверг, 17 Апреля 2008 г. 21:37 + в цитатник
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Have you got problems with English? Does it sometimes seem too difficult or illogical? Read what American linguist Richard Lederer writes about his native language.
 (174x210, 6Kb)Let’s face it – English is a crazy language, the most lunatic of all languages.
In the crazy English language, blackboards can be green or blue, and blackberries are green and then red before they are ripe.
There is no egg in eggplant, no grape in grapefruit, neither mush nor room in mushroom, neither pine nor apple in pineapple, and no ham in humburger.
In this unreliable English tongue, greyhounds aren’t always grey, panda bears and koala bears aren’t bears, and a guinea pig is neither a pig nor from Guinea.
Language is like the air we breathe – we take it for granted. But when we take the time to listen to what we say, we find that hot dogs can be cold, homework can be done at school, nightmares can take place in broad daylight while daydreaming can take place at night, hours – especially rush hours – often last longer than sixty minutes, and most bathrooms don’t have any baths in them/ in fact, a dog can ‘go to the bathroom’ under tree.
Why is it that a king rules a kingdom but a queen doesn’t rule a queendom?
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, shouldn’t the plural of booth be beeth?

If you write a letter today and wrote a letter yesterday, why don’t we say that you bite your tongue today and bote it yesterday? If the teacher taught, why isn’t it also true that the preacher praught? Why is it that the sun shone yesterday while I shined my shoes?
If olive oil is made from olives, what do they make baby oil from?
If hard is the opposite of soft, why is hardly not opposite of softy? If harmless actions are the opposite of harmful actions, why are shameful and shameless behavior the same and pricey objects less expensive than priceless ones?
Why is it that when the sun or the moon or the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible?
English users are constantly standing meaning on its head. Let’s look at a number of familiar English words and phrases:

A non-stop flight. Never get on one of these. You’ll never get down.
A hot cup of coffee.Who cares if the cup is hot? Surely we mean a cup of hot coffee.
I want to have my cake and eat it too. Shouldn’t it be ‘I want to eat my cake and have it too’?
Watch your head!You can often see this sign on low doorways, but how can you follow the instructions? Trying to watch your head is like trying to bite your teeth!
They’re head over heels in love.That’s nice, but all of us do almost everything head over heels. Why don’t we say, ‘They’re heels over head in love’?
They do things behind my back. You want they should do things in front of your back?
And in what other language can your nose run?

Here are some interesting questions

  • If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?
  • If people from Poland are called Poles, why aren’t people from Holland called Holes?
  • Why is the time of day with the slowest traffic called the rush hour?
  • Why do a slim chance and a fat chance mean the same (‘no chance at all’)?
  • Why is it that a man with hair on his head has more hair than a man with hairs on his head?
  • Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery?
  • Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?
  • Why is it called building when it is already build?
  • Why is abbreviation (‘a short form of’) such a long word?

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Процитировано 10 раз

Rucci   обратиться по имени Четверг, 17 Апреля 2008 г. 21:55 (ссылка)
Спасииибо! Давно хотела опубликовать эту супер-статью! :)
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Always_yours   обратиться по имени Четверг, 17 Апреля 2008 г. 22:18 (ссылка)
Хах, клёво)).
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Аноним   обратиться по имени Четверг, 17 Апреля 2008 г. 22:18 (ссылка)
Хоть с этим я не ошиблась!)))
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ElektraOne   обратиться по имени Четверг, 01 Мая 2008 г. 12:15 (ссылка)
Прикольно)) оч интересно, а как перевести вот эту фразу: They’re head over heels in love.That’s nice, but all of us do almost everything head over heels. Why don’t we say, ‘They’re heels over head in love’?
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supernaturalist   обратиться по имени Среда, 27 Августа 2008 г. 11:38 (ссылка)
по-моему весьма не плохо :)
>>> Трансерфинг Реальности <<<
это необычная копилка инструментов управления реальностью.
Стоит применить ее, и жизнь начнет меняться под ваш заказ.
Те, кто пробовали заниматься Трансерфингом, испытали удивление, граничащее с восторгом.
transurfing . co . cc - если ссылка нерабочая, то убери пробелы вокруг точек :)
Окружающий мир Трансерфера непостижимым образом меняется буквально на глазах - проверенно большим числом практикующих это Волшебство :)
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