English is a Silly Language

[A.Rahman]

English is a Silly Language



There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger;

neither apple nor pine in pineapple.



And while no one knows what is in a hotdog,

you can be pretty sure it isn’t canine.



English muffins were not invented in England

nor French fries in France.



Sweetmeats are candies, while sweetbreads,

which aren’t sweet, are meat.



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.



If the plural of tooth is teeth,

why isn’t the plural of booth, beeth?

One goose, 2 geese. So, one moose, 2 meese?

Is cheese the plural of choose?

One mouse, 2 mice.

One louse, 2 lice.

One house, 2 hice?



If teacher taught, why didn’t preachers praught?

If a vegetarian eats vegetables,

what does a humanitarian eat?



Why do people recite at a play, and play at a recital?

Ship by truck or car 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 the weather be hot as hell one day

and cold as hell another?



When a house burns up, it burns down.

You fill in a form by filling it out

and alarm clock goes off by going on.



You get in and out of a car,

yet you get on and off a bus.

When the stars are out, they are visible,

but when the lights are out, they invisible.

And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it,

but when I wind up this essay, I end it?

 

[EagleEyes]

Nice poem!

What i hate is how Americans made their own words.

colour to color
football to soccer
honour to honor

They dont give a **** about the world.

 

[ali ahmad]

they are easing the language,,,,,and they are using the language as they find it easy......

 

[Spring Onion]

Well making it easy is ok but the problem is they are adding so much slang to the language and Poor Britishers are helpless to save their language from destruction.

 

[niaz]

George Bernardshaw, himself an Irishman was commenting on the lack of logic of the English language. He wrote

" GHOTI " and asked how should one pronunce it?

'Gh' is pronounced as an 'f' in cough, tough, enough. rough etc.

'O' is pronounced as an 'I' in women.

'TI' is pronounced as 'Sh' in motion, solution, nation etc.

Thus if I were a speaker of a logical language such as Latin, I could pronunce
ghoti as 'fish'.

 

[Janbaz]

Nice poem!

What i hate is how Americans made their own words.

colour to color
football to soccer
honour to honor

They dont give a **** about the world.

They really do not. As stated above they have their own unique spelling and even in metric units. I do not get all the gallons stuff when i hear gas prices in U.S.A. Thank god Canada is pro-British linguistically.

 

[xebex]

English is like an open source software, u can learn it use it and modifye it the way u want when interacting. the only thing that matters is wether it works!!!

10/10 for the poem.

 

[Watani]

English is definitely one of the most beautiful languages and also easiest, you wouldn't know how to communicate otherwise with people around the world. I also really like Urdu language and of course my own beautiful language of Pashto.

 

[DarkStar]

talk about reviving a thread...this has just come back from the dead!

 

[DarkStar]

One more insult, and i'll start infractions and even banning! I've had it up to here with personal insults and swearing!

This must stop!

Although Jako used inappropriate language, Watani's response was way out of line.

If someone uses bad language, is abusive, use the report button because answering insults with insults is just as bad.

No warnings or deletions next time, I'll give straight bans to those who have ignored forum policy. No matter who started it.

 

[Hyde]

hahaha very nice sharing man, i liked it

thanks for sharing

 

[Omar1984]

English is a Silly Language



There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger;

I remember taking my cousins (who were from a village in Pakistan) to a restaurant once and I ordered a hamburger, they all had confused looks on their faces and looked at me weird. I told them its actually beef and not ham, they just call it hamburger but the meat is cow's meat so we can eat it.


P.S. English is pretty much spoken everywhere in the world. Its a universal language.

 

[xebex]

u know when me and my family first came into United States we went to a fast food restaurent inside Memphis airport and my uncle ordered "Hotdog" for us all...my dad went crazy and was like " I aint gonna eat any dog, damn it".

Lots of funny experiance with English.

 

[jeypore]

It is also a language that can be easily merge with other languages like for example Hinglish.

Hinglish - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[third eye]

THE ASTOUNDING ENGLISH LANGUAGE


An Ode of English Plurals

We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes 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 speak 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!

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?
Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English
should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.

In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?
We ship by truck but send cargo by ship.
We have noses that run and feet that smell.
We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.
And 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.

And in closing, if Father is Pop, how come Mother's not Mop?