1. The bandage was wound around the wound.
2. The farm was used to produce produce.
3. The dump was so full it had to refuse more refuse.
4. We must polish the Polish furniture.
5. He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7. Since there was no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8. A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9. When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10. I did not object to the object.
11. The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12. There was a row among the oarsmen on how to row.
13. They were too close to the door to close it.
14. The buck does funny things when does are present.
15. A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16. To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17. The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18. After a number of injections my jaw got number.
19. Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
20. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21. How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
so many clever people… ruined an otherwise pleasant stumble
agree
dis is 2 pis p30pl3 0ff ju$t cuz 1m mean $ i a1nt got no grammer skillage.
Hey fellow, Americans
Stop commenting on this. Pretty clear were not liked in the world.
sincerely,
Cut the bullshit
The silliest thing about English is that we do not get rid of unnecessarily tricky spellings, and so confuse and condemn half the population to illiteracy or years of struggle. (condem, strugl).
Only 36 of these words which make up 12% of everyday text need to keep their tricky spellings – see the web-page.
In English a single pronunciation, e.g., /’siz@rz/ can be spelled over 100 plausible
ways. In his book, A.J. Ellis lists 10,000 but some are like “ghoti” as a possible spelling of “fish” which begins with the gh in enough for /f/. In written English, gh never represents /f/ at the beginning of a word.
The efficiency of a writing system can be measured by the number of ways the pronunciation of the word can be plausibly spelled. It is hard to find a system that is less efficient than written English.
Using the notation in a dictionary, there is usually only one way to spell a pronunciation.
The list of homographic heterophones would not be a problem.
In a dictionary key notation, the two pronunciations of *wound would
be spelled *wu:nd and *waund,
In a pronunciation print the list would be written
wound: waund wuund
produce: pròduus próduus Webster: pr@’düs ‘pródüs
refuse: rèfúz refús
polsih: pälish pólish
lead: lééd led
present: prezènt prèzent prezènt
bass: bas bás
dove: dûv dóv Webster: ‘d@v ‘dóv
object: òbject objèct
Though these were kind of fun to read, I have to admit that it doesn’t make for a very good point. These sentences are so unnatural.
“I learn Chinese”. It sounds appropriate to me…after all there are no tenses in Chinese and no articles either so whether I went to the store, or I am planning on going to the store later, or I am in the act of currently going to the the store, it all translates literally to
‘I go store’
Anything else about it (when etc) is only implied in the rest of the conversation.
Same thing with every language.
wow. these comments are funnier than the actual article. a great deal of these readers seem to be overly-sensitive, pretentious douchebags who only seek to insult other people and prove how much “smarter” they are than everyone else. it seems to me that the english language doesn’t suck as much as people in general. smh.
I’m Norwegian, but I like English much better than Norwegian.
i thinkk th@ english is tha best lanegwidge but itz also tha worst if you look at it n uh diffrnt way…
-c.c. sabathia
In addition to my previous comment, I should point out that I’m the boss.
Among the rows a rose arose
Other languages have words that mean the same too..lol
I only have one thing to say and it’s a quote. “English; A language that lurks in dark alleys, beats up other languages, and rifles through their pockets for spare vocabulary.”
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You guys all need to calm the fuck down.
Read the list, enjoy it, move on.
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Ok, how about everyone drops it, and goes outside and does something meaningful, or fun! Get off the computer people.
But if you start a comment here with ‘But’ you will have your Butt taken.
Some of you guys should learn german!
that’s a complex language.
If those are the only reasons, why English sucks, try German:
“Wenn hinter Fliegen Fliegen fliegen, fliegen Fliegen Fliegen nach.” (“When behind flies flies fly, flies fly after flies”). This grammatically impeccable example already includes capitalization of nouns, an insane word order, prepositions, that follow the noun in question (postpositions?), and the difference between direct and indirect object. Now, that sucks!
I don’t think a debate on the superiority of languages is necessary. Sentences like these are simply written by inexperienced writers. Any language can be beautiful or rancid depending on its manipulation. This is a good contrast to Shakespeare though–train wreck vs masterpiece.
Peace in writing everyone!
Ok every language has these. I guarantee there is a website on the exact same premise in French, Spanish or German heck I bet there are some websites on dead languages like Latin or Arabiac.
Sanskrit
Personally, I found this article stupid, but all the comments made me laugh.
i agree with Erin lol
The comments, in response to the original post, are hilarious! Haha! A bunch of Idiots correcting Idiots on their ridiculous attempt at presenting, what their idea’s to be, “proper” English Grammar. LOL
troll lol lol
I rather enjoy the English langauge. Like any other language, it does have its nuances, but learning them allows one to insult someone without making it sound like an insult or giving an answer that really isn’t one (some of my main reasons for thinking that any langauge is fun learn in depth). It’s fairly economical… 26 characters and it lacks the gender identification of European langauges (German: der, die, das, den, dem, des represent ‘the’ depending on the gender of the word and its place in the sentence). There are some exceptions to the rules, but overall, it’s fairly simple. Japanese sounds beautiful, but it’s a very racist language. One set of characters (hiragana) for words of Japanese origin and a second set of characters (katakana), representing the exact same sounds, for foreign words. Japanese symbols (kanji) have different meanings, depending on what other character they’re next to. Combine that with different counting systems that depend on the shape of the items counted and you’re left with a massive headache (or at least I was, since German was far easier if you don’t count the ability to throw a half dozen verbs at the end of a sentence and still have it make sense).
As an English major, I am cracking up at all these comments… <~ hey, an ellipse! LOL
It's very frustrating for me to see grammar mistakes like your/yours/your's and obvious misspellings. Sometimes I point them out to the person, sometimes I just roll my eyes. It drives me nuts, so I see how it bugs many of you. This article was funny, but the comments were hilarious! Thanks for the laugh fellow grammar/spelling Nazis! Haha!
The problem with English (specially for foreigners) is that you can’t know how a word is pronounced simply by reading it.
That’s exactly the problem. Vowels take different pronunciation according to what is behind, but still there’s no absolute rule. English is a language that works by memory, you need to know how it sounds prior to add the word to your vocabulary. That’s why is such a big deal the spelling competition, or at least they exist here.
If you’re reading this because ‘Stumbled Upon’ sent you here. Click the ‘thumbs down’ to save other stumblers the agony! On second thoughts don’t do it, screw them!
I’m the Scatman
Everybody’s sayin’ that the Scatman stutters
But doesn’t ever stutter when he sings.
But what you don’t know I’m gonna tell you right now
That the stutter and the scat is the same thing.
Everybody stutters one way or the other
So check out my message to you.
As a matter of fact don’t let nothin’ hold you back.
If the Scatman can do it brother so can you.
Yo I’m the Scatman.
I don’t think anyone understands that the title of this article isn’t supposed to be completely literal… Every other language has problems too.
City slicker asks farmer.
What do you do with all that food? farmers reply
“We eat what we can and what we cant eat we can.”
nuff said
What about:
The content of the letter made him feel quite content.
No-one has said anything about the person who called the internet pointless?
Considering all the trolls here you would think someone would have commented by now.
The complexity of English is evident in how many fundamental errors are contained in the posts by the folks who fancy themselves to be grammarians. That’s the real humor in this blog.
10. I did not object to the object.
LOL
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lulz…. what a bunch of nerds
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Why can’t we be friends?
Why can’t we be friends?
Why can’t we be friends?
Why can’t we be friends?
Come on, people! Check out the Chinese response to “Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion-Eating_Poet_in_the_Stone_Den
LOL
I train my dog to avoid train tracks.
Yeah, English does suck in that aspect.
The plural of dive is dived. Dove is simply a bird.
22. is totally not a weird english tongue twister dood. water you doing.
I hate english because this is considered a full sentence: Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo.
And we are oh-so-determined to keep it the exact same way…
its safe to keep your precious items in a safe!