A friend sent me this and I thought it should be posted here given some of our discussions. There are many words that have several meanings depending on how they are used.

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) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

8) A bass was painted on the head of the 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.

18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

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.

__________________
Just my humble opinion!

This is a good one. However I still don't think English is the hardest to learn. I found Chinese a bit harder.

Is that because in Chinese when you know the apaphabet you know every word in the language as they have a new character for each word

__________________
Just my humble opinion!

Chinese is almost void of grammar, verb conjugation or tense.

Yesterday I eat.
Today I eat.
Tomorrow I eat.

On the other hand, as the first post of this thread shows, English is a minefield of quirky grammar, verb conjugation, and specials rules. Unlike many languages where you learn the "formula" for converting words to change the tense or conjugation (Korean is a very good example), English basically has no formulas that you can rely on.

eat eating ate
먹다 - 먹고 있다 - 먹었다

buy buying bought
사다 - 사고 있다 - 샀다

English changes constantly from word to word - but Korean (and most other languages) stay the same.

I don't think Chinese is that easy to learn. I learn English as a second language, and took Chinese in college for a couple of semester. Chinese is still harder. I don't think Chinese is that straight forward.

I now hate the english language.

__________________
http://www.cardomain.com/ride/819935

Just thought I would add this one. It had a few the original post didn't have.


Reasons why the English language is so hard to learn:
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) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time
to
present the present.
8) A bass was painted on the head of the 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
18) After a number of 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 want it to be on record that I will record my record
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.
Quicksand works 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? 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? Is it an odd, or an end?

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 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.

P.S. - Why doesn't "Buick" rhyme with "quick"?

I took some courses in teaching ESL in college, and one of the handouts we did was like this.

It looked at all the many, many, many uses we have for the word "up" attached to another word. It was chaos.

South Korea likes to say that it has had an unprecidented 5,000 year history of being invaded and bashed about by outsiders, but if they looked at the history of the English language, the would get a little different perspective.

The reason the English language is so screwed up is directly related to the British isles' history of being over-run by different peoples and cultures. It is a mix, broadly speaking, of Latin, Germanic, and more native Celtic cultures/languages.

In fact, what I've been studying recently in education here in the US is that one reason English grammar is so chaotic is the fact that someon in the 19th century tried to graft Latin classical grammar onto the amalgamation that is the English language.