LOOKING AT THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE CRITICALLY

By Barbara Scott

I was amused by your piece about the complexity of the English language. I know only too well how confusing this is to someone who is learning English as a second language. It is not until you look at your own language through a foreigner's eyes that you realise why they say it is the hardest language to learn! Well, here is something else that might interest your readers. There is a very amusing and informative book written by a journalist called Lynne Truss called Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. As a writer and journalist, Truss realised how often improper punctuation can make all the difference to the sense of sentence. An example of this is the clue to the title of the book:

A panda walks into a bar. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why? Why are you behaving in this strange, un-panda-like fashion?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda walks towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says, at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

There are many more examples of how poor punctuation can alter the meaning of a sentence or passage completely. Also, the ubiquitous 'apostrophe' is one of my pet hates. There is a golden rule that I learned at school and that is to only put in an apostrophe if it is appropriate. ie: if it is a possesive noun (Barbara's book) or if it is to replace the letter i in an abbreviation (where's my book?). So many people use it as a plural as in a sign I saw recently in a shop window advertising a sale. It read ALL SHIRT'S HALF PRICE! Urrrrrrgh! How irritating is that, especially as it was in big red lettering in a very well known store! If in doubt leave it out is the best advice. Having worked for a newspaper I was always aware that if something was spelt or punctuated wrongly it was nearly always on the front page as a headline and in

72pt bold type!!!!

'Facah returns to India again'

How Good are you!

The English language is very difficult to understand, have you made any effort to decode the language? Lets try to intellectualise this forward.

You think English is easy???

Read to the end . . . a new twist

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) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

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? 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? 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, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

PS. - Why doesn't 'Buick' rhyme with 'quick' ?


You lovers of the English language might enjoy this .
There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is 'UP.'

It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP ?
At a meeting, why does a topic come UP ?
Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report ?
We call UP our friends.
And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver; we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen.
We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car.
At other times the little word has real special meaning.
People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses.
To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special.
A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP..
We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.

We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP !
To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary.
In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions.
If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used.
It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more.
When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP .
When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP...
When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP.
When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry UP.

One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP, for now my time is UP, so........it is time to shut UP!
Now it's UP to you what you do with this email.

Peace

COME ON ENGLAND

Great expectations: This is what Rooney failed to against their match with Algeria

They say that a week is a long time in politics. Well, that can also be said for football as witnessed by the England fans so far in South Africa. Here in England we, like other countries, make heroes of our football stars. They can do no wrong, both on or off the field, as long as they are scoring goals. However, when they don't deliver the results we expect, as we have seen in both of the games they have played so far in the World Cup, we are ruthless in our condemnation of them. I am not a great football fan but I do have opinions on the events so far. I feel we should continue to give them our support regardless of whether they win or lose. Booing and vilifying them will not help them gain the confidence and direction they clearly need to win their next game on Wednesday. Yes, it is dissapointing and for those fans who paid a lot of money to travel to South Africa to watch them it must seem like a total waste of money and time, but no-one can guarantee who will win or lose. They haven't lost yet! I think they should all pick up their vuvuzelas and blow as hard as they can to cheer them on. Come on England, chins up, stiff upper lips, show them what you can really do when you put your minds to it!!

By Barbara Scott in the UK

Oh Football!

FOR ALGERIA, IT WAS A VICTORY- ENGLAND ASKED THEMSELVES WHY COULDN'T COLLECT THREE POINTS:

It is a match English fans will hardly forget for a very long time, not because they were held by Algeria through out the game, it is certainly because England's match was supposed to be a mere formality- a foregone conclusion that the English should collect three points from Algeria. But that was not the case. Take a look at this article published by the middle-east-online:

Algeria determined to stun England
Algerian captain insists his national team have qualities which should shine through against England.

MARGATE - Algeria can pose Group C favourites England problems when the two teams clash on Friday in Cape Town, Algerian captain Anther Yahia claimed on Monday.
Both sides go into the match on the back of disappointing opening results, England being held 1-1 by the United States and Algeria losing 1-0 to Slovenia.
However, 28-year-old Yahia, who plays his club football for German side VfL Bochum, insisted that a change of tactics from their first game would suit his team better and cause the English some discomfort.
"We have qualities which should shine through," said the France-born midfielder, who actually represented France at Under-16 and Under-18 level.
"We are going to pose problems for the English. We will be more ambitious (than against Slovenia) and it is a role that suits us better."
Algeria coach Rabah Saadane said all he wanted was for the players to give their all.
"There are two extremely difficult matches remaining (Algeria's last match is against the USA on June 23) and in which the players have to run themselves into the ground," said Saadane, who also coached Algeria at the 1986 finals.
"We have to be in the right shape psychologically and tactically.
"England are a superb team. I put them among my favourites. There will be very little change against them in terms of personnel, maybe one or two."
Mohamed Raouraoua, president of the Algerian football federation, said Algeria were not going to the match simply to lie down and surrender.
"We are not going there just to make up the numbers," said Raouraoua, who was present at the squad's

Oh South Africa!

WITH ALL THE NOISE AND THE FANFARE:
the Bafafana Bafana fans went home sad as if the ghost of the Soweto uprising is haunting the Rainbow nation

Hopes of South Africa making it to the second round have been dealth with a serious blow by Uruguay's striker Diego Forlan and Pereira last minute brace. Just like the tournament itself, history will be recorded for the first in the history of the tournament should South Africa fail to qualify. And if Bafana Bafana is expecting to defeat the French in their last game - they must do that by a wider goal margin and pray that Mexico trash their distance relatives the South Americans.

Whatever happens, the timing of tonite's three nil defeat by Uruguay will not go down well with South Africans, especially if one is looking at from the history books. On this day in June 1976, dozens of South African students protesting for better education got killed by the Police during the infamous apartheid regime in South Africa.

Now after fighting so hard to host the event on home soil, South Africans may have to wait for Mother Luck to save them from stepping aside out of the 2010 World Cup when they battle it out on their last game.

By Ebrima Baldeh