Heteronyms...
this is brilliant
Homographs
are words of like spelling but with more than one meaning.
A homograph
that is also pronounced differently is a heteronym.
You think
English is easy?
I think a
retired English teacher was bored...THIS IS GREAT!
Read all the
way to the end...
This took a
lot of work to put together!
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 for me 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.
=
