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Author Topic: English  (Read 7058 times)

atomic7732

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English
« on: June 13, 2012, 12:25:22 AM »
“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 or 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 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, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? 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? 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? 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, 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.”
—   
From Richard Lederer - Crazy English

Bla

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Re: English
« Reply #1 on: June 13, 2012, 03:20:57 AM »
That's epic. :P I doubt a lot of other languages are better, though. Except for maybe some planned languages made from scratch like Esperanto (not that I know that language). Danish may be even worse.

FiahOwl

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Re: English
« Reply #2 on: June 13, 2012, 06:04:30 AM »

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« Last Edit: March 22, 2021, 01:37:33 AM by FiahOwl »

Darvince

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Re: English
« Reply #3 on: June 13, 2012, 08:50:31 AM »
inb4 lojban

vh

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Re: English
« Reply #4 on: June 13, 2012, 10:00:41 AM »
kol try korean chinese arabic japanese (they have seperate characters for each word instead of english, which uses letters to make words, so you have to memorize tens of thousands of symbols).

vh

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Re: English
« Reply #5 on: June 13, 2012, 10:02:29 AM »
0110100100100000011100110111000001100101011000010110101100100000011000100110100101101110011000010111001001111001

Bla

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Re: English
« Reply #6 on: June 13, 2012, 10:27:20 AM »
kol try korean chinese arabic japanese (they have seperate characters for each word instead of english, which uses letters to make words, so you have to memorize tens of thousands of symbols).
Arabic has an alphabet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_alphabet
You still have to memorize tens of thousands of words and their meanings in any case. But yes, I think letters are more efficient, then you need to combine meaning with the word or sound, and can usually generate the word from the sound or the sound from the word, instead of having meaning, sound and symbol which I guess aren't very systematically linked in those languages.

matty406

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Re: English
« Reply #7 on: June 13, 2012, 10:50:09 AM »
The Korean alphabet is very intuitive, making words is modular; each Korean letter has a symbol that you group with others.

Hellpotatoe

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Re: English
« Reply #8 on: June 13, 2012, 11:39:39 AM »
Try brazilian portuguese kol  ::).

FiahOwl

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Re: English
« Reply #9 on: June 13, 2012, 12:28:27 PM »

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« Last Edit: March 22, 2021, 01:37:21 AM by FiahOwl »

Desacabose

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Re: English
« Reply #10 on: June 13, 2012, 04:57:30 PM »
y r u do n dat r u hacking u lttle b**** im go repot u 2 valve

_

Twelve year old-Internet

vh

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Re: English
« Reply #11 on: June 13, 2012, 05:25:18 PM »
desacabosecest is legit.

noffing.

Darvince

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Re: English
« Reply #12 on: June 14, 2012, 06:33:45 PM »
inb4 nardeo is offended

Hellpotatoe

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Re: English
« Reply #13 on: June 15, 2012, 03:38:20 AM »
THOU NEWBIE HAS LEARNED KOL

OUR SECRET IS BROKEN, WE MUST FORGE ANEW

KolKolKol, this is a Blahsphemy

FiahOwl

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Re: English
« Reply #14 on: June 15, 2012, 05:56:22 AM »

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« Last Edit: March 22, 2021, 01:36:08 AM by FiahOwl »

Hellpotatoe

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Re: English
« Reply #15 on: June 16, 2012, 10:06:48 AM »
THOU NEWBIE HAS LEARNED KOL

OUR SECRET IS BROKEN, WE MUST FORGE ANEW

KolKolKol, this is a Blahsphemy

Bla's phemy*

Also I hope you stick around and make this forum a little less quiet :)
Kol, i'm blaquottin you quote about my quote! This is a quoteception!

Darvince

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Re: English
« Reply #16 on: June 16, 2012, 12:36:37 PM »
He even speaks the language of Uboxforum! Everyone hideeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

atomic7732

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Re: English
« Reply #17 on: June 16, 2012, 01:06:10 PM »
Lurker.

Hellpotatoe

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Re: English
« Reply #18 on: June 16, 2012, 01:37:17 PM »
He even speaks the language of Uboxforum! Everyone hideeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
I'm here since 1958  8)

Lurker.

I'm not a lurker  :-[

atomic7732

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Re: English
« Reply #19 on: June 16, 2012, 01:41:37 PM »
CONTRADICTIONS!

I was just joking but it seemed plausible.

Hellpotatoe

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Re: English
« Reply #20 on: June 16, 2012, 01:48:12 PM »
CONTRADICTIONS!

I was just joking but it seemed plausible.
Ok, let me be a semi-lurker and we close the issue

Hellpotatoe

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Re: English
« Reply #21 on: March 13, 2013, 04:53:52 AM »
CONTRADICTIONS!

I was just joking but it seemed plausible.
Ok, let me be a semi-lurker and we close the issue
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matty406

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Re: English
« Reply #22 on: March 13, 2013, 09:27:46 AM »
I THINK WE'LL PUT THIS THING RIGHT HERE

Hellpotatoe

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Re: English
« Reply #23 on: March 13, 2013, 09:39:09 AM »
TRUST ME, I'M A ENGINNER!
WTF DID JUST HAPPENED HERE?

blotz

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Re: English
« Reply #24 on: March 13, 2013, 01:08:20 PM »
youwastung my time