the paradoxical language

29 April, 2009 at 11:49 am (Uncategorized)

Read all the way to the end…………..(The end is the best bit of evidence that English is a hard language)
This took a lot of work to put together!!!

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,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 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.

PS. – Why doesn’t ‘Buick’ rhyme with ‘quick’ ?

You lovers of the English language
Might enjoy this .

There is a two-letter word
That perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is ‘UP.’

It’s easy to understand
UP, meaning toward the sky or at
The top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP ? At a meeting, why does a topic come UP ? Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report? 

We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver; we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car. At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP  trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special.

And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP. We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.

We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP ! To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP  almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions. If you are UP to it, you might try building a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don’t give UP, you may wind UP with a
hundred or more. When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding
UP . When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP..

When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP.
When it doesn’t rain for awhile, things dry
UP.

One could go on and on, but I’ll wrap it  UP, for now my time is UP, so……..it is time to shut UP!

Oh . . . one more thing:

What is the first thing you do in the morning & the last thing you do at night? U-P

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Yay For sheep!!

25 March, 2009 at 6:40 pm (Random)

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Two Days till Paris

25 March, 2009 at 12:05 pm (General, Paris) (, )

I’m getting very excitedand can’t focus on what needs to be done- like the two essays I have to write for a job application or the important things for Paris. We have tickets for all legs of the journey apart from the metro, Euros and we have or should have Travel Insurance now and we have a list of things we need, but I still haven’t don’t my washing or turned my smart trousers up (the curse of being a short arse)eeep!!  ……Later!!

We have a list of places to visit as well and were just hoping for a little bit of nice weather to I can take millions of pictures without worrying about killing my camera. The weather forcast has improved since we started looking at the 10day weather forcast when snow ad sleet was forcast, now were down the scatter showers and sun Friday and Saturday and Sunday SUNNY!!!!! yay but still chilly but sun yay!!!

The one thing that has annoyed my once again were going somewhere were I would like at least one picture of Seb and I together that looks nice and i’ve had another alergic reaction and my cheeks are covered in Hives. Grr!!!  Its sore and itchy and they’ll be here for at least a few days providing I don’t eat whatever it is that doesn’t agree with me and hope thats as bad as it gets worse for Paris.

Ever since that bloody flu the reactions are getting worse I wish I knew what caused the big reaction I had in January and then I could avoid things. Slight Grumble over! Maybe I should do what others do and bug the doctors?

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Fish

23 March, 2009 at 10:25 am (Uncategorized) ()

Poor Spike gave up fighting this morning :(

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Riverdancing Sheep – The First Snow of Winter

20 March, 2009 at 2:23 pm (Random) ()

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Friday 13th

16 March, 2009 at 11:46 am (General)

Just like the last Friday 13th I was in Cardiff  for a meeting with a potential employer. The meeting when fairly well but I doubt anything will come from it though, I’m not very confident about things involving finding a job at the moment but thats as far as i’m going with that now.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Seb’s birthday cake

12 March, 2009 at 2:58 pm (Cooking)

Seb's Half Eaten Birthday Cake

Seb's Half Eaten Birthday Cake

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Squishes!

11 March, 2009 at 12:29 pm (Fish) ()

I’m really please Spike the Fish is starting to look a lot better. Hes been in a glass jug for 4 days with A tonic to help him get better and I think its straiting to work. The black spots are gradually fading which is good- the black spots are the result of a reaction to the water in the tank when it was dirty and stress of being bullied by Tilly. But now hes safe on his own in the jug with the water being changed every two days. However despite the fact hes looking better he’s still not eating properly, he doesn’t look thin but hes spitting out all his food- poor fish! I wonder if hes psychologically damaged because with Tilly just before they were seperated she’d attack him if he tried to eat (Fish don’t have a few second memory).

But anyway they are both better apart.

Spike and Tilly

Spike and Tilly

Tilly’s thrieving we bought her a new tank at the weekend and changed the position of her tank so we can see her a bit betterand give her more attention. She has a mirror behind the tank for when we’re not there to entertain her. She seems to be communicating with the other fish thats in the mirror and if youmove the mirror she gets very upset and tries to look for the other fish.

Tilly is mad!

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Bread Success- YAY

8 March, 2009 at 1:44 pm (Cooking) ()

Bread successfully made and yummy!!!

Yummy Homemade Bread

Yummy Homemade Bread

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Cooking Becky

6 March, 2009 at 3:41 pm (Cooking, Random) (, )

As part of the keeping myself focused I’m doing useful and rewarding things everyday:

Yesterday I made scones much fun and tasty even with a foolish mistake doubling the recipe -oooopppps!!! I like baking hmm waiting for the end of lent so I can make biscuits and cakes with Viv.

Tomorrow I’m making white bread with Seb hopefully more successful that the last time when too much salt was added. fingers crossed for success and yummy looking bread.

I’m using this recipe http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/2781/basic-loaf.aspx but using all strong white flour.

Today I ironed jeans but thats not worth discussing lol

I’m also writing all the recipes down to  keep them together.

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