Humor: lesson

[Seth and Betsy Budney <sbbudney@ENTERACT.COM>]

 Here is another humorous email that can be used in a library lesson (dictionary 
skills?)

Betsy Budney
Librarian
Harte Elementary School
sbbudney@enteract.com

 REASONS WHY THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IS HARD TO LEARN
>
>     1)  The bandage was wound around the wound.
>
>     2)  The farm was used to produce produce.
>
>     3)  The dump was so full that 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 is 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 about how to row.
>
>     13) They were too close to the door to close it.
>
>     14) The buck does funny things when the 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?
>
>     22) Why do we drive on the parkway and park in the driveway.
>
>
>     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, that
> you comb through annals of history but not a single annal?
>
>     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 English speakers should be committed to
> an asylum for the verbally insane.
>
>
>     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? How can overlook and oversee be
> opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike? How can the
> weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell another?
>
>     Have you noticed that we talk about certain things only when they
> are absent? Have you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful gown?
> Met a sung hero or experienced requited love? Have you ever run into
someone
> who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable? And where are all those
> people who ARE spring chickens or who would ACTUALLY hurt a fly? 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. And why, when I wind up my
> watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it.
>


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