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English is strange


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English is very strange

 

Did you know that "verb" is a noun?

 

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

 

If a word is misspelled in a dictionary, how would we ever know?

 

If two mouses are mice and two louses are lice, why aren't two houses hice?

 

If Webster wrote the first dictionary, where did he find the words?

 

If you wrote a letter, perhaps you bote your tongue?

 

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?

 

In Chinese, why are the words for crisis and opportunity the same?

 

Is it a coincidence that the only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable?

 

Is there another word for a synonym?

 

Shouldn't there be a shorter word for "monosyllabic"?

 

What is another word for "thesaurus"?

 

Where do swear words come from?

 

Why can't you make another word using all the letters in "anagram"?

 

Why do fat chance and slim chance mean the same thing?

 

Why do overlook and oversee mean opposite things?

 

Why do people use the word "irregardless"?

 

Why do some people type "cool" as "kewl?"

 

Why do we say something is out of whack? What is a whack?

 

Why do we say something's out of order when its broken but we never say in of order when it works?

 

Why does "cleave" mean both split apart and stick together?

 

Why does "slow down" and "slow up" mean the same thing?

 

Why does flammable and inflammable mean the same thing?

 

Why does the Chinese ideogram for trouble symbolize two women living under one roof?

 

Why does X stand for a kiss and O stand for a hug?

 

Why doesn't "onomatopoeia" sound like what it is?

 

Why don't we say "why" instead of "how come"?

 

Why is "crazy man" an insult, while to insert a comma and say "Crazy, man!" is a compliment?

 

Why are a wise man and wise guy opposites?

 

Why is abbreviation such a long word?

 

Why is dyslexic so hard to spell?

 

Why is it so hard to remember how to spell MNEMONIC?

 

Why is it that no word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple?

 

Why is it that the word "gullible" isn't in the dictionary?

 

Why is it that we recite at a play and play at a recital?

 

Why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?

 

Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song?

 

Why is the plural of goose-geese, and not the plural of moose-meese?

 

Why isn't "palindrome" spelled the same way backwards?

 

Why isn't phonetic spelled the way it sounds?

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Eh, some of it's funny..most is too much of a stretch.

 

Also, if you are going to make a joke about language, grammar, and such...

 

Why does flammable and inflammable mean the same thing?

 

Come on!

 

What???

 

There is nothing wrong with that sentence.

 

It could be either 'do' or 'does' in that situation.

 

Another reason why the English langauge is weird, lol

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Eh, some of it's funny..most is too much of a stretch.

 

Also, if you are going to make a joke about language, grammar, and such...

 

Why does flammable and inflammable mean the same thing?

 

Come on!

 

What???

 

There is nothing wrong with that sentence.

 

It could be either 'do' or 'does' in that situation.

 

Another reason why the English langauge is weird, lol

 

Do covers the plurality of having the two options, and does covers the fact that they "are the same thing" which is singular...

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English is easier in many ways than many languages, but it also has many inconsistencies. The problem is we adopted so many rules and words from different languages, that rules very rarely apply across the board.

 

But at least we don't have so many conjugations and the like, and we've done away with gender in all but a few cases.

 

If you want an extremely fascinating read on the history of the English language, check out Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson.

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