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, two geese -- one moose, two meese? And one index, two indices?
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend, that you comb through annals of history but not through a single annal? If you have a collection of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why don't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? If you wrote a letter, did you brote your tongue?
Sometimes I think all 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; park on driveways and drive on parkways?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and 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 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 clock 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.
Multi-national personnel at North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters near Paris found English to be an easy language... until they tried to pronounce it. To help them discard an array of accents, the verses below were devised. After trying them, a Frenchman said he'd prefer six months at hard labor to reading six lines aloud. Try them yourself.
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 to give up!!!
DESIDERATA
|
GO PLACIDLY AMID THE NOISE & HASTE, & REMEMBER WHAT PEACE THERE MAY BE IN SILENCE. AS FAR AS POSSIBLE WITHOUT surrender be on good terms with all people. Speak your truth quietly & clearly; and to listen to others, even the dull & ignorant; they too have their story. ~ Avoid loud & aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain & bitter; for always there will be greater & lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. ~ Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Excercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many people strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism. ~ Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity & disenchantment it is perennial as the grass. ~ Take Kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of the spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue & loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. ~ You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees & stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. ~ Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors & aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. ~ With all its sham, drudgery & broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy. ~~ |
--WRITTEN BY MAX EHRMAN (1872-1945) IN 1927.
"EuroEnglish"
In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". This will certainly make the sivil sevants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favor of the "k". This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have 1 less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced by the "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20% shorter.
In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent "e"s in the language is disgraceful, and they should go away.
By the fourth yer, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".
During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.
After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evri vun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer.
Here's an easy thing to say:
If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,
And the bus is interrupted as a very last resort,
If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash,
You can't say this?
If the label on the cable on the table at your house,
And your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss
When the copy of your floppy's getting sloppy on the disk,
And the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,
Then the socket packet pocket has an error to report!
And the double-clicking icon puts your window in the trash,
And your data is corrupted 'cause the index doesn't hash,
Then your situation's hopeless, and your system's gonna crash!
What a shame sir!
We'll find you
Another game sir.
Says the network is connected to the button on your mouse,
But your packets want to tunnel on another protocol,
That's repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall,
So your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse,
Then you may as well reboot and go out with a bang,
'Cause as sure as I'm a poet, the sucker's gonna hang!
And the microcode instructions cause unnecessary risk,
Then you have to flash your memory and you'll want to RAM your
ROM.
Remember when......
A computer was something on TV from a science fiction show A window was something you hated to clean.... And Ram was the cousin of a goat Meg was the name of my girlfriend And gig was your middle finger upright Now they all mean different things... And that really mega bytes! An application was for employment A program was a TV show A cursor used profanity A keyboard was a piano Memory was something that you lost with age A CD was a bank account And if you had a 3 1/2" floppy... You hoped nobody found out! Compress was something that you did to the garbage Not something you did to a file And if you unzipped anything in public You'd be in jail for a while Log on was adding wood to the fire Hard drive was a long trip on the road A mouse pad was where a mouse lived And a backup happened to your commode Cut you did with a pocket knife Paste you did with glue A web was a spider's home And a virus was the flu I guess I'll stick to my pad and paper, and the memory in my head - I hear nobody's been killed in a computer crash, but when it happens they'll wish they were dead!
DID JESUS USE A MODEM AT THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT?
Did Jesus use a modem,
At the Sermon on the Mount?
Did He ever try a broadcast fax,
To send His message out?
Did the disciples carry beepers,
As they went about their route?
Did Jesus use a modem,
At the Sermon on the Mount?
Did Paul use a Laptop,
With lots of RAM and ROM?
Were his letters posted on a BBS,
At Paul.Rome.Com?
Did the man from Macedonia,
Send an E-mail saying "Come?"
Did Paul use a Laptop,
With lots of RAM and ROM?
Did Moses use a joystick,
At the parting of the Sea?
And a Satellite Guidance Tracking System,
To show him where to be?
Did he write the law on tablets,
Or are they really on CD?
Did Moses use a joystick,
At the parting of the Sea?
Did Jesus really die for us,
One day upon a tree?
Or was it just a Hologram,
Or Technical Wizardry?
Can you download the Live Action Video Clip,
To play on your PC?
Did Jesus really die for us,
One day upon a tree?
Have the wonders of this modern age,
Made you question what is true?
How a single man, in a simple time,
Could offer life anew?
How a sinless life, a cruel death,
Then a glorious life again,
Could offer more to a desperate world,
Than all the inventions of man?
If in your life, the voice of God,
Is sometimes hard to hear.
With other voices calling,
His doesn't touch your ear.
Then set aside your laptop and modem,
And all your fancy gear.
And open your Bible, open your heart,
And let your Father draw near.
Abort, Retry, Ignore
it read "Abort, Retry, Ignore".
"Abort, Retry, Ignore".
"Abort, Retry, Ignore".
"Abort, Retry, Ignore".
"Abort, Retry, Ignore".
Doc
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