English 102

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!

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Comments

[Muzik]

I think what we've done to the language is whack. Who learns these kids to spoke anyhow?

[Carlos]

Loved the post, as well as the previous post on English.

“Like Syndrome” is something that can get under my skin, especially when it’s afflicting my kids. My seventeen-year-old son has acute Like Syndrome. I don’t bitch at him any more; I simply wait until he’s done talking before telling him how many times he used the word.

Thanks for the link!!

[Karen]

This was a great post, the English Lunacy was great. Have a great day!! :-D

[Joe the Troll]

I remember several people in high school who would say "Why do we have to study English? I don't plan on being an English teacher!" As if English teachers were the only ones who need to know how our language is used.

I wonder what Wal-Mart all those people are working at today?

[Penny]

"2. How can you look up words in a dictionary if you can't spell them?"

I asked that question when I was, like, eight years old ... I was told to, like, look it up in an encyclopedia! Like, an encyclopedia would, like, KNOW the answer!
:)

[Bruce]

Very clever. This has to be one of my all time peeves, you know. When my 19 year old daughter talks we just start, you know, counting on our fingers how many times she, you know, says like. I'm glad I don't say anything that would like, you know, distract people.

Enjoy your site. First time reading.

B~

[Skunkfeathers]

Hey, I'm a champion of uneradicatable superfluous redundancy, and in that I am adamant ;)

[Peter]

Sure would hate to be learning English as a second language as an adult Miss C.

[ed bremson]

Concerning "English Lunacy" above, you use the write/wrote, bite/bote analogy (or write/writ, bite/bit). Interesting. My grandfather, who was steeped in archaic or perhaps obsolete usages sometimes, used to say that he clomb a tree, instead of climbed. Maybe in some some era, in some place they used, or still use, bote. Yep, I can just hear someone say, "I bote off more than I could chew," or something like that. My late wife, who was a linguist, could have explained some of this. Thanks for the post.

[Dick]

A good post. I took an online class at the local college last fall where most of the communicating between instructor & student was public, at least to the rest of us in the class. It is amazing how poor these mostly high school graduates (some are fast tracking & doing both at the same time) are at writing! The instructor kept me on the rest of the year to help add things to the flow and this quarter he told them to re-read their posts before hitting the Send button. It made a difference.

[actor212]

My favorite comment on English and how hard it is to learn came on "I Love Lucy," when Ricky tried to comprehend words that end in "ough"...

[jules]

I SOOOO remember my mom saying "Go get the dictionary and look it up" when we'd ask her how to spell a word and being so freaking frustrated with her. How were you supposed to look it up if you didn't know how to spell it? But I'm an excellent speller today because of it. Now if only they'd have had something for math!

[Simply Coll]

I am the world's worst speller. So was my dad. He always said that not being able to spell was a sign of superior intelligence. :-)

[Jean-Luc Picard]

What ho! The English language is jolly fascinating!

[Jamie Dawn]

I am like totally fascinated with like Little Johnny's like "fasten-eighting" answer. Like cool!

[Old Horsetail Snake]

Do they have jokes like this in Spanish?

Actually, I guess I don't care, since I can't read Spanish. In fact, I can't read Hebrew either.

[Raggedy]

For the life of me I don't know how I am trailing Hoss with every blog I visit. I don't really read other people comments, only the one that shows up above where I am typing. I have my thought ready to type and his comments have derailed my train of thoughts over and over again today..lol I have so much fun visiting here that I don't need to look further. You are funny! You make me laugh! I appreciate all the work you put in your posts.

Can you raed tihs? Olny srmat poelpe can. :)
cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg.

Have a great day!

[Alazka]

The "anti-like" poster would arguably be more effective if the word "academy" were spelled correctly, no?

[cybele]

The comma splice and the misspelling of both 'academy' and 'awareness' are probably deliberate and ironic.

[Mike Ashley]

I love posts about words and their "peculiarities." I find it peculiar that that one in quotes is correct, but doesn't look right.

What's the only word in the English language that contains all the vowels in exact order of appearance. Following that "Y" can sometimes be used as a vowel, the words meets that too.
"Facetious." And of course Facetiously."

[Baby Slings]

It is amazing how poor these mostly high school graduates (some are fast tracking & doing both at the same time) are at writing!