response to various english language threads

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

recently there have been various threads about something similar to this list: I have had this stored in an email for many years.

The bandage was wound around the wound.
The farm was used to produce produce.
The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
We must polish the Polish furniture.
He’d be able to lead if he would get the lead out.
The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert. [Triple whammy!]
Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
I did not object to the object.
The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
They were too close to the door to close it.
The buck does funny things when the does are present.
A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
After a number of injections my jaw got number.
Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

2

Oh, the glory of homonyms and homographs. What is your question?

3

…and, seeing no General Question, let’s move this to MPSIMS.

samclem, Moderator, GQ

4

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

5

Neat post! Am I correct that the words I’ve just bold-faced are the only homographs in the whole post that are also homonyms?

It was at the very end:

… but I don’t know the answer. Try Great Debates ?

6

The Tartars ate their Steak Tartare with tartar sauce and had to use Tartar control toothpaste.

7

I just learned one, but it’s not in English, it’s Japanese, but I think it’s a lot of fun …

It’s the legend of Kuchisake-onna, she asks you if think she’s kirei (cute), and (in some versions) if you say yes, she’ll cut you, because that’s a homophone of kire which means “cut me.”

Did I say that was fun? I must be a sick bastard.

8

You have just increased substantially my list of heterophonic homographs (or, if you prefer, homographic heterophones:

appropriate
approximate
arithmetic
bases
bow
bower
close
combat
conduct
contact
contract
does
dogged
equivalent
extract
flower
glower
house
lame
lead
learned
moderate
perfect
prayer
precipitate
read
recall
record
recreation
refill
refuse
represent
resent
resin
resolve
resort
resting
retract
retread
reuse
river
separate
sewer
shower
singer
slough
tower
unionized
use
wind
wound

9

My contribution also from my email:

From the Internet, source unknown.

Verbally Insane

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? We ship by truck but send cargo by ship.
We have noses that run and feet that smell.
And 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.

So if Dad is Pop, how come Mom isn;t Mop?

And I’ve often wondered: How come we park in a driveway and drive on
a parkway? Makes no sense!

10

The average English word has 20 different meanings.

11

I never knew “row” meaning quarrel was pronounced differently from “row” meaning to paddle. Well, I’ll be a monkey’s bare-assed uncle.