Funny English - Just for Fun!

     It's been quite some time since my last post. Ever wonder why English is such a 'killer' subject in Sabah schools? Are the teachers to blame, or the language itself is just impossible to teach? No denying that the English language is such a crazy, complicated language. Anyhow, in my honest opinion, that is what makes it so interestingly and dizzyingly beautiful. Just want to share a few notes and anecdotes that I have gathered from books and the Net. Hope you enjoy reading them!

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

     There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple or pine in pineapple. And while no one knows what is in a hotdog, you can be pretty sure it isn't canine.
English muffins were not invented in England nor 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 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, two meese? Is cheese the plural of choose? One mouse, 2 mice. One louse, 2 lice. One house, 2 hice?
If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Why do people recite at a play, and play at a recital? Ship by truck or car and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? Park on driveways and drive on parkways?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell another? When a house burns up, it burns down. You fill in a form by filling it out and an alarm clock goes off by going on. You get in and out of a car, yet you get on and off a bus. 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? (Author unknown)

GOOD WRITING ADVICE

     In promulgating your esoteric cogitations or articulating your superficial sentimentalities and amicable philosophical or psychological observations, beware of platitudinous ponderosity.
     Let your conversational communications possess a compacted conciseness, a clarified comprehensibility, a coalescent cogency and a concatenated consistency.
Eschew obfuscation and all conglomeration of flatulent garrulity, jejune babblement and asinine affectations.
     Let your extemporaneous descants and unpremeditated expatiations have intelligibility and voracious vivacity without rodomontade or thrasonical bombast.
Sedulously avoid all polysyllabic profundity, pompous prolificacy and vain vapid verbosity.
If you are really interested to know, the above means: "Be brief and don't use big words."

THE HOKEY POKEY (SHAKESPEARIAN STYLE)

*The Hokey Pokey*
Original Lyrics

Put your left foot in,
Your left foot out,
Your left foot in,
And shake it all about.
You do the hokey pokey
And turn yourself around
That's what it's all about.

*The Hokey Pokey*
Shakespearean Style

O proud left foot, that ventures quick within Then soon upon a backward journey lithe.
Anon, once more the gesture, then begin:
Command sinistral pedestal to writhe.
Commence thou then the fervid Hokey-Poke.
A mad gyration, hips in wanton swirl.
To spin! A wilde release from heaven's yoke.
Blessed dervish! Surely canst go, girl.
The Hoke, the poke -- banish now thy doubt.
Verily, I say, 'tis what it's all about.

SPELLING POEM

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.