A Poem on English

[Twila]

To be remembered anytime you become frustrated by someones poor english

[FONT=Arial, Times New Roman][/FONT] [FONT=Arial, Times New Roman][SIZE=-1]I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you
On hiccough, thorough, slough, and through.
Well don't! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps.
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard but sounds like bird.
And dead: it's said like bed, not bead,
For goodness sake don't call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt).
A moth is not a moth as in mother
Nor both as in bother, nor broth as in brother,
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear, for bear and pear.
And then there's dose and rose and lose--
Just look them up--and goose and choose
And cork and work and card and ward
And font and front and word and sword
And do and go, then thwart and cart,
Come, come! I've hardly made a start.
A dreadful Language? Why man alive!
I learned to talk it when I was five.
And yet to write it, the more I tried,
I hadn't learned it at fifty-five[/SIZE][/FONT]

 

[hermanntrude]

check this one out.

 

[eh1eh]

Oi vae.

 

[Twila]

And if that isn't hard enough here is a list of contradictory english words.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_self-contradicting_words_in_English

 

[Twila]

check this one out.

Wonder how I missed that? I feel sorry for anyone who has to learn english. No wonder my grandmother had such trouble interacting with people.

 

[warrior_won]

I feel sorry for anyone who has to learn english.

I've yet to meet an English speaking person that didn't have to learn English. Perhaps you are right. We need a better way to know something without learning it. I propose the following:

• Close all schools
• Fire all teachers
• Ban all books
• Prohibit people from associating with others
• Outlaw all means of communication

• Criminalize the production of paper

That should spare folks the agony of learning English... Or any other language for that matter.

 

[MikeyDB]

Luckily we have the United States of America at our back...

Lite Brite fite..... At least the Americans have figured out that a language that looks like it sounds makes more sense than the "high-minded"..."Shakespearean British" that we inherited from those lovely islands.

And by the way... governments have been attempting to out-law communications for centuries. They've only managed to do it in government offices and facilities like national defense and security but give them time....

 

[jimshort19]

English bad - Americanish good

MikeyDB has a point. The Americans have somehow defied the Oxford dictionary's brake on the evolution of the language. We really aught to put this effort into overdrive or the world will all end up speaking the new Chinese, but maybe that's not a bad idea.

Great poem Twila. Did you write it? Your days are numbered. Everything rhymes in Chinese.

 

[Twila]

Hi Jim, Nope I didn't write it.

I've yet to meet an English speaking person that didn't have to learn English. Perhaps you are right. We need a better way to know something without learning it. I propose the following:

* Close all schools
* Fire all teachers
* Ban all books
* Prohibit people from associating with others
* Outlaw all means of communication

* Criminalize the production of paper

That should spare folks the agony of learning English... Or any other language for that matter.

Let me clarify. What I should have written is "I feel sorry for those who have to learn english as a SECOND language. Seems the language/grammar police have arrived..

Lite Brite fite..... At least the Americans have figured out that a language that looks like it sounds makes more sense than the "high-minded"..."Shakespearean British" that we inherited from those lovely islands.

Now if we can just come up with different words for those words that sound the same but mean different, like there, their, they're and bear and bare.

 

[darkbeaver]

Duz eneebuddy no eny thing aboat this.

Time flies like an arrow, fruit flys like an apple.

 

[Twila]

Time flies like an arrow, fruit flys like an apple.

I thought it was fruit flies like a banana?

 

[darkbeaver]

I thought it was fruit flies like a banana?

That's neat:smile:

 

[Twila]

It's a quote by Groucho Marx

 

[warrior_won]

It's a quote by Groucho Marx

Do you have any quotes from Karl Marx?

 

[Twila]

Do you have any quotes from Karl Marx?

Of course, Would you like to hear some? It would only take me 2 seconds to locate them on the net for you.

 

[darkbeaver]

It's a quote by Groucho Marx

Marx was neat.

 

[darkbeaver]

Do you have any quotes from Karl Marx?

No I don't have files like that but I vaguely remember reading long lists of his quotes which I associate with icecream and flowers yummy:lol:

 

[Twila]

Marx was neat.

I think the Groucho brothers were more of a guys comedy duo...I preferred Laurel and Hardy or Abbott and Castello myself.