Email About the English Language

You Think English is Easy???
Can you read these right the first time?

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 topresent 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 muffinsweren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats arecandies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English forgranted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can workslowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea noris it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groceand hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the pluralof booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2indices? 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 eatsvegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the Englishspeakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In whatlanguage do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck andsend 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 awise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of alanguage in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fillin 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 thecreativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all That iswhy, 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"

My new motto: Plan for tomorrow, but live for today.