| Author |
Message |
    
Harry Simenon
Unity Member
Post Number:
2011
Registered: 10-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, August 25, 2008 - 10:06 am: |   |
Most of U will know it I guess, but who 'nose?'
Was it posted here B4 perhaps?
I take it you already know,
Of tough and bough and cough and dough.
Others may stumble, but not you,
On hiccough, thorough, laugh and through.
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps.
Beware of heard, a dreadful word,
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead - it’s said like bed, not bead,
For goodness’ sake, don’t call it ‘deed’!
Watch out for meat and great and threat,
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt).
A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother.
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear.
And then there’s dose and rose and lose –
Just look them up – and goose and choose.
And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword.
And do and go and thwart and cart –
Come, come, I’ve hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Why man alive!
I’d mastered it when I was five.
No idea who wrote it... |
Frank Mazur
Hsympothai Member
Post Number:
344
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, August 25, 2008 - 11:42 am: | |
I still remember the "-ough" bit on I LOVE LUCY where Ricky was corrected every time he said a word containing "-ough." It was his proof that English is a crazy language.
FREE Short Stories by F.E. Mazur at femazur.com. Give them a try and drop me a line.
SPINE
THE BUCKSELLER |
Fred Dungan
Unity Member
Post Number:
2123
Registered: 10-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, August 25, 2008 - 06:50 pm: | |
Having worked as a translator for the Food Stamps program for 8 months in 1991, I can assure you that English is the modern lingua franca. Keep in mind that English is the language in which technical terms debut. As globalization progresses, English has become the hallmark of the educated urban elite in developing countries. Having become the last remaining superpower by default following the collapse of the Soviet Union, we are spreading our language and popular culture via the Pax Americana. I suspect that historians will record this era as the Golden Age of the English language, i.e. the period in which English reached its greatest boundaries in terms of both content and geography. We North American writers are indeed fortunate to be the recipients of such a bountiful largesse.
This aside, I would much prefer the Romance languages (Spanish, Italian, etc.) to English because they are far easier to learn and follow rules in which the exceptions are few and far between. And they tend to sing, whereas English, for the most part follows the rough gruff gutteral Anglo Saxon, Germanic tribes tradition. When the Romans occupied Britain and erected Hadrian's Wall, they commented that our linguistic forbears sounded like "barbarians" (barbar in Latin is the sound made by a barking animal).
In centuries to come, an archaelogist could conceivably uncover a rusting server hard drive with an archive of this Forum on it and might use it as a Rossetta stone to shed light on the social, linguistic and technological aspects of our culture. Due to recent policy changes, however, there will most likely be little or nothing of value to help our descendants understand the complexities of 21st century politics and religion. However, it is not too late for us to change our ways and I would be criminally negligent if I did not take advantage of this opportunity to implore our esteemed leader to reconsider his decision concerning politics and religion.
http://www.fdungan.com/publish.htm |
Harry Simenon
Unity Member
Post Number:
2012
Registered: 10-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, August 26, 2008 - 09:44 am: | |
This is a link, but do not fear; no politics or religion.
It's about American English in the past and future |
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