English

My mother was an English major in college, and now she's a world traveler. She's traveled all over North America, Europe, and Africa. She lived in Africa for a while, courtesy of the Peace Corps. She says she's spoken English with people all over the world, and the only ones she couldn't understand were in England.

Its amazing how people all over the world manage to learn English, since it IS the most difficult language on earth. Difficult? How difficult could it be? After all, I learned it! Then again, there are those who would argue about that... SOME people think that words like "reckon" and "yonder" belong to some other language.

The word Oxymoronica is defined as any compilation of phrases or quotations that initially appear illogical or nonsensical, but upon reflection, make a good deal of sense and are often profoundly true. Anyone who enjoys the absurdities of the

English language will love the site Oxymoronica.

Learn lots of delicious new words at The Double-Tongued Word Wrester.

The Global Language Monitor tracks new word usage around the world.

For a serious study of the different kinds of English, see this huge amount of information on dialects.

Conversational terrorism. The intent of detailing and naming these insidious tactics is so that the reader may AVOID USING THEM, to quickly recognize if someone else is using them, and for fun. There is much humor in the way people (consciously or unconsciously) conversationally cheat.

I took a little test here...Commonly Confused Words Test.

English Genius You scored 92% Beginner, 100% Intermediate, 100% Advanced, and 86% Expert!

You did so extremely well, even I can't find a word to describe your excellence! You have the uncommon intelligence necessary to understand things that most people don't. You have an extensive vocabulary, and you're not afraid to use it properly! Way to go! Thank you so much for taking my test. I hope you enjoyed it!

Do You Speak English?


Pain in the English has questions (and sometimes answers) about the odd usage of words and terms.

Blog of the day: Literally, a Weblog is dedicated to the use and misuse of one overused English word. Its a hoot!

For semantics nuts, this will provide a few days reading. Or if you have a specific question about word usage, you may find the answer here.

List of British English words not used in American English.

ENGLISH
We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes;
But the plural of ox became oxen not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice;
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
If I spoke of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?
Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine, she, shis and shim.
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.
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?
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 folks who grew up speaking English 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?
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.
Where did this strange language come from and why do we speak it?
'Cause we don't know another, I guess...





No littering. See how hard it is to translate English?


Lots more fractured English at Engrish.com.

Funny English mistakes from new ESL students.

Your Linguistic Profile:

75% General American English

20% Dixie

5% Midwestern

0% Upper Midwestern

0% Yankee

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

ENGLISH IS HARD! (via Karen)
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 sleeve,
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.

Thought for today: English? Who needs that? I'm never going to England. -Homer Simpson

This post originally appeared on March 28, 2006.

humor links English funny language semantics translation

Comments

[Radio op]

Have to hand it to you I loved the post on English and the Video was a crack up;
I have been to the UK three times on holiday but their dialect yeah well as an Aussie it is hard; I have video's on both my Blogs; enjoyed it truly

[Saur Kraut]

Here's what I got. OK, I'm proud of it, because I was raised by an English Teacher and an Author:

English Genius

You scored 100% Beginner, 100% Intermediate, 100% Advanced, and 86% Expert!
You did so extremely well, even I can't find a word to describe your excellence! You have the uncommon intelligence necessary to understand things that most people don't. You have an extensive vocabulary, and you're not afraid to use it properly! Way to go!
Thank you so much for taking my test. I hope you enjoyed it!

For the complete Answer Key, visit my blog: http://shortredhead78.blogspot.com/.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 56% on Beginner

You scored higher than 34% on Intermediate

You scored higher than 65% on Advanced

You scored higher than 57% on Expert

Thanks for the the blog today, Miss C! I enjoyed it as always!

[Saur Kraut]

P.S. Here's my dialect:

60% General American English
25% Yankee
10% Dixie
5% Upper Midwestern
0% Midwestern

[OldHorsetailSnake]

Gee whiz, Missy, you're just wearing me out.

Go to sleep.

[Carl]

Yer English test link is hosed, madam.

Fifty points to anyone who both parses and diagrams that sentence for me...

[LZ Blogger]

Here's acouple I just loved!
[to] blag
to obtain or achieve by deception, to bluff, to scrounge, to rob, robbery, tall story, bluff, deception
blimey
An exclamation of surprise. (Originally gor blimey, a euphemism for God blind me, but has generally lost this connotation.)
Who knew where those came from? Fun STUFF! ~ jb///

[Hale McKay]

Regarding the only two words to contain all the vowels in order:

Remembering that the vowels are a,e,i,o,u and sometimes y - then
abstemiously and facetiously work also.

I loved this post. I am big on phonetics, semantics, wod play, etc., and you just gave me some more sites to add to my "research blogroll list."

[Mike]

Your Score: English Genius
You scored 92% Beginner, 92% Intermediate, 80% Advanced, and 80% Expert!
How you compared to other people your age and gender:
You scored higher than 99% on Beginner
You scored higher than 99% on Intermediate
You scored higher than 99% on Advanced
You scored higher than 99% on Expert

HA! I'm in the 99th percentile for old guys!

[Tsitsi]

Who says English is the most difficult language in the world? I learned English as a third language, easy as pie. Than I tried to learn Czech, oh boy! And don't even get me started on Arabic, which I gave up on.

[Miss Cellania]

Tsitsi, I struggled with Chinese for a while. There's a challenge! A musical language for a person who can't carry a tune in a bubcket!

[Tsitsi]

By the way, I, too, am an English genius!

Your Score: English Genius
You scored 100% Beginner, 100% Intermediate, 93% Advanced, and 86% Expert!
You scored higher than 99% on Beginner
You scored higher than 99% on Intermediate
You scored higher than 99% on Advanced
You scored higher than 99% on Expert

[actor212]

English is easy to speak! Learn German first, then slur your words.

[the frogster]

Learning English not hard is. From the Star Wars movies all the training needed, received I.

[Saskboy]

I deal with ESL students almost every day in my job. Communication can be tricky, especially in the area of Information Technology. If they don't understand, many just politely nod yes, and cause delays.

[LBB]

I laughed my ass off at Yoda. And I loved, loved that first poem. Man, English is fucked up!

[Murphy]

I didn't do so good, on account of nobody ain't never teached me to talk proper.