I‘m not quite a language Nazi, although my kids may think I am. However, I have reached an age where it grates on my ear when Gothgrrl says “whatever” as an answer to everything. And Princess is getting into using “like” more than once in a sentence and it drives me up a wall. Why can’t she just stutter and say “uh” like a normal English speaker? I try to remember how my folks reacted when I used “groovy” and “far out” and “right on” as an answer for everything. They were much more patient. Then again, they were much younger when they were raising kids. I guess English has always been a problem for native English speakers as well as those who try to learn it as a second language. English really does make no sense at all sometimes.

Its Your Damned Language. Carlos and Jules are picking apart egregious sins against the Queen’s English.

ENGLISH LUNACY

(via Wulfweard) 

1. Did you know that "verb" is a noun?
2. How can you look up words in a dictionary if you can't spell them?
3. If a word is misspelled in a dictionary, how would we ever know?
4. If two mouses are mice and two louses are lice, why aren't two houses hice?
5. If Webster wrote the first dictionary, where did he find the words? And how did he know how to spell them?

6. If you wrote a letter, perhaps you bote your tongue?
7. If you've read a book, you can reread it. But wouldn't this also mean that you would have to "member" somebody in order to remember them?
8. In Chinese, the words for crisis and opportunity are the same!
9. Is it a coincidence that the only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable?
10. Is there another word for a synonym?
11. Shouldn't there be a shorter word for "monosyllabic"?
12. What is another word for "thesaurus"?
13. Why can't you make another word using all the letters in "anagram"?
14. Why do overlook and oversee mean opposite things?
15. Why do we say something is out of whack? What is a whack?
16. Why do we say something's out of order when its broken but we never say in of order when it works?
17. Why does "cleave" mean both split apart and stick together?
18. Why does "slow down" and "slow up" mean the same thing?
19. Why does flammable and inflammable mean the same thing?
20. Why does the Chinese ideogram for trouble symbolize two women living under one roof?
21. Why doesn't "onomatopoeia" sound like what it is?
22. Why are a wise man and wise guy opposites?
23. Why is abbreviation such a long word?
24. Why is dyslexic so hard to spell?
25. Why is it so hard to remember how to spell MNEMONIC?
26. No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple?
27. Why is it that the word "gullible" isn't in the dictionary?
28. Why is it that we recite at a play and play at a recital?
29. Why is the alphabet in that order?
30. Why is the plural of goose-geese, and not the plural of moose-meese?
31. Why isn't "palindrome" spelled the same way backwards?
32. Why isn't phonetic spelled the way it sounds?

VOCABULARY

A grade school teacher in Kentucky asked  students to use the word "fascinate" in a sentence.

Molly put up her hand and said, "My family went to my granddad's farm, and we saw his pet sheep. It was fascinating."

The teacher said, "That was good, but I wanted you to use the word 'fascinate,' not 'fascinating.'"

Sally raised her hand. She said, "My family went to see Rock City  and I was fascinated."

The teacher said, "Well, that was good, Sally, but I wanted you to use the word 'fascinate.'"

Little Johnny raised his hand. The teacher hesitated because she had been burned by Little Johnny before. She finally decided there was no way he could damage the word "fascinate," so she called on him.

Johnny said, "My aunt Gina has a sweater with ten buttons, but her boobs are so big she can only fasten eight."

The teacher sat down and cried.

 Previously on Miss Cellania: English

Thought for today: Help stamp out and eradicate superfluous redundancy.

PS for the usual suspects: I certainly appreciate the jokes and links you leave in the comments! I will be using them in the future. But you don’t have to have a joke or a witty riposte in order to leave a comment... I love to hear from you anyway! For those who only read, please take a look at the comments, because you will often find jokes that are funnier than what I come up with!

humor jokes video funny language English grammar semantics vocabulary Save To Del.icio.us