Off topic: They say English is easy .... Thread poster: Nigel Greenwood (X)
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Nigel Greenwood (X) 
Spain
Local time: 20:32
Spanish to English
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This was sent to me, by a friend, it certainly makes you think why soem consider transalting as an art, and why we can say that Automatic translation will never give the same results as a human translator.
You Think English is Easy???
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.
... See more This was sent to me, by a friend, it certainly makes you think why soem consider transalting as an art, and why we can say that Automatic translation will never give the same results as a human translator.
You Think English is Easy???
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 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.
We 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, too.
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 UP 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 UP 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... Time to shut UP!
I hope this helps you relax a bit
Nigel. ▲ Collapse
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- The first century B.C. is actually the last century B.C.
- I got caught in one of the biggest traffic bottlenecks - should be smallest!
- Watch you head! - it's like 'Bite your teeth'
- Put you best foot forward - we have a good foot, a better foot, bu... See more - The first century B.C. is actually the last century B.C.
- I got caught in one of the biggest traffic bottlenecks - should be smallest!
- Watch you head! - it's like 'Bite your teeth'
- Put you best foot forward - we have a good foot, a better foot, but we don't have a third and 'best' foot.
And much more in Crazy English by Richard Lederer ▲ Collapse
| | | | | thanks for the laugh! | Sep 14, 2009 |
Thanks for the chuckle this morning, Nigel. I am reminded of an exchange I had with an outsourcer over why one would "fill in" the blanks while "filling out" a form.
| | | | Paul Dixon
Brazil
Local time: 15:32
Portuguese to English
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| Fill in vs. Fill out | Sep 14, 2009 |
In reply to Kathryn's posting, the apparent contradiction between "fill in" and "fill out" is a creation of the Americans. In The Queen's English, we say "fill in" for both the blanks and a form - much more logical.
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Paul Dixon
Brazil
Local time: 15:32
Portuguese to English
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| English Pronunciation Poem | Sep 14, 2009 |
I found this on the Web, and although I think I have already posted this on this site, it is always good to read it again.
"Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
... See more I found this on the Web, and although I think I have already posted this on this site, it is always good to read it again.
"Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough?
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is give it up!"
Gerard Nolst Trenité
September 1999 ▲ Collapse
| | | | | It'd been a while since I last had such a great laugh | Sep 14, 2009 |
Thanks for sharing. That was awesome.
| | | | | Plagiarism abounds on the net | Sep 14, 2009 |
Paul Dixon wrote:
I found this on the Web, and although I think I have already posted this on this site, it is always good to read it again.
"Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
..."
Gerard Nolst Trenité
September 1999
I first came across this poem well before 1999 (my hardcopy is on very yellow paper). The version of events that I have is that it was first printed in an Aberdeen newspaper in the 20s or 30s.
I love handing it to English speakers asking them to just read aloud. If they manage the first verse without mispronunciation, they, without fail, fall on the second one. (The idea is to read aloud on first sight without hesitation - great party game even without the Scottish brew).
| | | | | The English Language is Dum | Sep 14, 2009 |
A fellow translator posted this on Twitter just a few days ago:
103-year-old Ed Rondthaler gives his English spelling reform lesson below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmMSilHDSAs
[Edited at 2009-09-14 20:37 GMT]
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