The Awful Elements of English

[Corran Antilles]

Very true (http://bygonebureau.com/2010/03/19/the-awful-elements-of-english/)

[Marcus Rosier]

Oh yes. Chinese grammar is wonderfully simple in comparison.

But then again there are plenty of other aspects to make up for that.

[Samantha Koortyn]

My dad lived in Germany for a while when he was in the Navy. He said German is the easiest to learn of all the other places he lived.

Also, I get it. And what is funny is that I get it in French too. And upon conversing with Corran, I still get it. I'm sure Corran will say that I always get what he says except for very few exceptions. Maybe it's just me. But I know what most people are trying to say.

For the most part German is simple. The German expression ich gehe, for example, has six English options, depending on the context: I go, I am going, I have gone, I have been going, I will go, or I am going to go. I don’t blame my students when they create the sentence I am living in Hamburg for the last five years. This is weird to me. How does "I am going" translate to "I will go" or "I have been going". Do you add stuff like "I go soon" or I go "eventually" or "I go once"?

[Jarivena Head]

Lifted from another site :)
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?

Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant nor is there 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.

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

[Matheron Thayer]

This is weird to me. How does "I am going" translate to "I will go" or "I have been going". Do you add stuff like "I go soon" or I go "eventually" or "I go once"?In colloquial German we do such (e.g. for future tenses). Though "I will go" actually translates to "Ich werde gehen"; and "I have been going" to "Ich ging" (or the colloquial and, strictly, incorrect "Ich bin gegangen"). Yet of course, these heedless days, the German, too, rarely use correct tenses. :p

[Corran Antilles]

What Math said. ;)

And Sam: Germans are mostly polite if a foreigner tries to speak German and trying to understand. Not like the French who ignore you if you can't speak their language. So maybe your Dad thought that it's easy. ;)

[Samantha Koortyn]

I don't think he was in France to compare. But he was in Iceland. :]

I improved these. ;]

19. Upon seeing the tear in the painting in the shed I shed a tear.

20. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests on a variety of subjects.

[Matheron Thayer]

19. Upon seeing the tear in the painting in the shed I shed a tear.

20. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests on a variety of subjects.Ha ha. Good ones!

[Samantha Koortyn]

Wait, even better:

19. Upon seeing the tear in the painting in the shed I shed a tear, then went on a tear.

[Leto Tariq]

But its complexity is a good thing. I hate these sort of ideas that, "Eww, English is so complicated, it's a bad language compared to 'x country's' language." Yes, it appears messy, but that's what makes it so versatile. Our adaptability is our strength. We're the Millennium Falcon of languages - looking pretty isn't the point.

And a lot of those "confusing" words make more sense when you know their etymology and history. The "quick" in quicksand is the same as the "quick" in quicksilver. It means living, not fast.

Americans call chips "French fries" because that was the name of a form of cooking. "Frire" - to fry - was a method of cooking developed by the French, and so "French fried" was a common way to describe food that was fried. Likewise, to "french" something is to cut it into strips. Finnland and some other Nordic countries sell chips as Frenched potatoes; most countries in Europe use the French "Pommes Frites", which is just "fried potatoes". The American version is just a slight variation on these.

English isn't stupid, nor is it some "mongrel language". Just because something is complex, or difficult, does not mean it's bad. There is no bad language, and anyone who wants to call themselves a writer shouldn't disregard them like that, and they certainly shouldn't be the ones teaching the language to those in a foreign country.

But classrooms are terrible for teaching languages anyway. I'm certain Corran or Math have learned more about English by writing here and other places than they ever would have listening to someone from outside their country trying to tell them how to use it properly.

[Matheron Thayer]

Very true, Leto.

[Corran Antilles]

Yeah, and I often enough ask Sam if I can use this or that term in a story post.

[Samantha Koortyn]

The "quick" in quicksand is the same as the "quick" in quicksilver. It means living, not fast.And the same as when you rip your fingernail down to the "quick".

I love etymology.

[Matheron Thayer]

Me too. That's why I dislike the German Rechtschreibreform -- obscuring origins it is.

[Corran Antilles]

But there have been always changes in the language, Math. Just before they never made such ado about it.

[Samantha Koortyn]

Yeah I love when people tried to be TOO proper in "fixing" spellings of words. Like how hiccup became hiccough because it sounded like a cough, but is still pronounced hiccup. And berfry became belfry because it had bells in it. :smack

And a double negative means doubly negative, it doesn't cross itself out to become a positive. Shakespeare knew that.

Also, word shifts are fun. purpur - purple, nadder - adder, etc.

[Corran Antilles]

Well, we say still purpur and Natter. ;)

[Samantha Koortyn]

Heh, cool. :] In the latter case, a nadder became an adder. Someone screwed up there I think. ;]

[Corran Antilles]

We have Natter and Otter. Both words are in use.

[Samantha Koortyn]

I know. We use otter too. But it's always been otter. ;]

[Corran Antilles]

But we use Otter for your adder and otter. ;)

[Han Antilles]

I hear otters taste good.

[Jarivena Head]

'Otter' as in you shouldn't otter do that? :)