REASONS WHY THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
IS 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 ham in hamburger; neither
apple nor pine in pineapple.  English muffins weren’t
invented in England nor 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, that you
comb through annals of history but not a single annal?
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 other 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?  How can
overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot
and quite a few are alike?  How can the weather be hot
as hell one day and cold as hell another?

Have you noticed that we talk about certain things
only when they are absent?  Have you ever seen a
horseful carriage or a strapful gown?  Met a sung hero
or experienced requited love?  Have you ever run into
someone who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or
peccable?  And where are all those people who ARE
spring chickens or who would ACTUALLY hurt a fly?  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, isn’t a race at all).  That is why, when the
stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights
are out, they are invisible. And why, when I wind up
my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I
end it.  Hmmmmmmm……..

— Author Unknown