I am going to say this up front. I am really bad at languages. I tried to learn German. Epic failure. I tried to learn Spanish. Enough stuck long enough to get me through two weeks in Buenos Aires, then I promptly forgot it all. It’s probably a good thing I learnt English as my native language or I’d be well and truly up the creek without the proverbial paddle.
It’s always amused me what weird and wonderful rules the english language has and the fact that for every rule there are probably several exceptions to contradict the rule, especially when it comes to spelling. There are many examples of words which have the same sound but different spelling.
· byte, bite, bight
· seen, scene
· hear, here
· their, there, they're
· feet, feat
· ate, eight
· err, heir, air
· wheel, weal, we'll
· you, ewe
· isle, aisle, I'll
· ale, ail
Of course, there is also the opposite, where words have the same spelling but are pronounced differently. The trick to getting it right is to know the context in which it is being used. Below are a few examples:
- We must polish the Polish furniture.
- He could lead if he would get the lead out.
- The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
- 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.
- 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?
- 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.
The killer for this kind of thing is the “Ough” sound. You’d think that being a single grouping of letters it would have one, maybe two ways of pronouncing it. Staggeringly, it can be pronounced in eight completely different ways. The following sentence is an excellent example of how this miscreant of the english language can make life difficult: “A rough-coated, dough-faced ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough, coughing and hiccoughing thoughtfully.”
Then you have to contend with the ninjas of the spelling world: the silent letter. They sit there while you speak, not being noticed, and then when you need to write the word … BAM !!! And there’s not just one of them, there’s a whole host of them just waiting to trip you up.
· The silent G: gnat, gnaw
· The silent K: know, knee, knife, knit, knickers, knuckle
· The silent P: psychology, psychiatrist, pneumonia
· The silent L: should, could, would
· The silent S: isle, aisle, island
· The silent W: wrap, wrinkle, write, wrath, wrist, wrought
· The silent B: debt, doubt
· The silent T: listen, soften, castle, often
The general spelling rule that most children learn is use i before e … except after c (receive, deceit) … or when sounding like a (neighbor, sleigh, weigh, freight). Of course, this means there are a raft of words that are, in fact, exceptions and then there are the words which are just annoying and don’t follow the rule OR the exceptions: seize, weird, neither, either, foreign, sovereign, forfeit, counterfeit, leisure, heifer, protein, geiger (as in 'counter'), height, sleight, feisty, seismograph, poltergeist, kaleidoscope.
Even going from singular to plural forms of words isn’t easy. Wrap your head around the following: To make a plural, add ‘s’ (dog > dogs) except when the word ends in s, x, z, ch and sh then add ‘es’ (bus > buses, box > boxes, buzz > buzzes, church > churches, dish > dishes) … or if it ends in y then add ‘s’ except when a consonant preceeds the y then the y changes to i and you add ‘es’ (donkey > donkeys, penny > pennies) … likewise, if the word ends with f then the f is changes to a v and we add ‘es’ (loaf > loaves) … and again with o as an ending, if it has a vowel preceeding then add ‘s’ (radio > radios) but if it has a consonant preceeding then add ‘es’ (volcano > volcanoes) … and those latin words which end with –ex or –ix become ‘–ices’ (index > indices, matrix > matrices). There are many more rules to changing the ending of a word to create the plural, too many to list here, and it can almost seem easier to just remember what the plurals are rather than remembering all the rules. The last plural rule that deserves a mention is when the singular and plural of a word are the same (one sheep > many sheep).
The things I have listed above are to do with the rules of english, the complexities of it and the many frustrations which litter the path when it comes to learning english. It is not a complete list, merely an overview. But what about those things in the english language which are just a little bit strange, sometimes funny and quite often thought provoking?
Is there another word for synonym? Well, actually, no. There is no synonym for the word synonym. It means, of course, a word which means exactly or nearly the same as another word in the same language. And there is no other word in the english language which means that.
Oxymorons are abundant in the english language. They are pairings of words which appear to be contradictory. Original copy is an example of this as something is either original or a copy. What is often meant is original edition. It is what is called an inadvertent oxymoron. Controlled chaos is an apparent oxymoron. Paradoxical oxymorons are those which are extremely apparent, such as irregular pattern and deafening silence.
Related to oxymorons are those phrases in which one of the words has multiple meanings, the correct meaning making the phrase logical, the incorrect meaning making a mockery of the speaker. One might ask, “How is it possible to have a civil war?” This plays on the word civil having dual meanings: polite / between citizens of the same state.
There are plenty of examples in English of two seemingly contradictory terms mean the same thing. Fat chance and slim chance both mean there is little chance and why do flammable and inflammable mean the same thing, especially considering the prefix –in usually refers to the opposite of the root word (tolerant > intolerant)? Slow down and slow up mean the same thing also despite up and down being antonyms.
There are expressions which we use commonly that, when you think about them, don’t quite sound right. Shouldn't it be called a near hit rather than a near miss? To use their correct definition, a near miss would be a hit, as you nearly missed. It is logical, therefore, to assume that a near hit should be used to refer to an incident in which something was nearly hit.
There are those oddities which just don’t quite fit into a category. For example, the word lisp (which is a speech defect in which s is pronounced like th): it seems somewhat ironic, cruel even, that is has the letter ‘s’ in it. Another example is the word abbreviation (which means a shortened form of a word or phrase): it is such a long word that we need to abbreviate it to abbr. The third, and final, example is the word phonetic (which is the way something sounds): if phonetic was spelled phonetically then it would be fonetic.
And I couldn’t finish this post without making reference to the difference in meaning of words between the different English dialects. British English and American English have many words which mean different things. In Australia we tend to be familiar with both uses of the word but will use one over the other, sometimes the British, sometimes the America. Below is a short list (it’s by no means comprehensive, feel free to add your own in the comments section) along with the British and American definitions:
Banger
US – someone who has a lot of sex
UK – sausage; old car
Bangs
US – Hairdressing term
UK – Has sex with
Bugger
US – to sodomize
UK – swear word (like f**k but less severe)
Canteen
US – something a soldier drinks out of
UK – a cafeteria
Dull
US – not sharp
UK – boring
Fanny
US – slang for bottom
UK – slang for vagina
Flat
US – a deflated tyre
UK – an apartment
Holiday
US – specifically public holidays, eg. July 4th
UK – either a specific public holiday or a vacation
Mate
US – procreate
UK – buddy
Pavement
US – the road surface
UK – footpath
Period
US – full stop
UK – specific part of the menstrual cycle
Pound sign
US – #
UK – £
Pussy
US – slang for vagina
UK – slang for cat
Ring up
US – in sales, to put items through the register
UK – to call someone on the telephone
Randy
US – a name
UK – horny
Rubbers
US – condoms
UK – erasers
Tramp
US – a woman with loose morals
UK – a homeless person
For a comprehsive list of British terms explained for American audiences, visit the following website:
Of course, with more of a TV cross over now, both versions of many of the above words are acceptible in both countries, though I still get asked to explain a lot of terms I use by American friends.
If you have any other oddities about the english language, feel free to comment.
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