( 2 )
Some other reasons to be grateful if you grew up
speaking English:
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.At the Army base, a bass was painted on the head
of a 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 Novocaine 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.I spent last evening, evening out a pile of dirt.
23.If you are being loved by someone, I am also being
loved by none other than a nun.
24.Indian Railway is a big concern but its safety is the
biggest concern.
25.Though there is no interest in it, no one takes
interest in it.
26.When does, are near, a buck does funny things.
27.She wanted to sow, but her sow ate the grain; so
she chose to sew.
28.Next, she hitched her cow to a plough to make a
trough.
29.Then she decided to combine her combines.
30.That evening, she told her beau to go slow.
31.I had to subject the subject to a test.
32.It might be wise to bow to a man with a bow.
33.John had to write to the right people to keep his
rights during his rites.
34.The ewe with the flu knew who was due to get you
through to the gnu with the number-two shoe, too!
35.At ‘Lords’ the wicket was so true that no wicket fell
in the entire day though the bowlers often tried
round the wicket and over the wicket bowling
frequently.
36.If on such a true pitch your ball is pitching overpitch,
the batsman will take you for a ride.
37.I can bet you that the Bat lying dead was beaten by
the cricket bat.
38.The bowler runs on the run up, bowls the ball, batsman
runs out of
ideas, still runs the ball towards third man and runs
the run.
39.It is said that in the court of Hon’ble justice Thomas,
nobody will be denied justice.
40.Once the lease was ceased the lessee un leased the
lease which was leased between him and lessor and
again on request of lessor, re-leased the lease.
41.Once the result was released, tension was released and
students started celebrating.
42.As soon as you lied, I was the first to judge where the
lie lies in your statement.
43.He was barred by the police to enter into the bar
despite the recommendations by the BAR (British
Accreditation Regency).
44.The true friend never backs a friend in front of him
but always backs his friend on his back even annoyingly
the friend may not come back to him again.
45.The police arrested the druggist as he was selling drugs
to a drugged.
46.The coach of the team sent instructions to the batsman
through the 12th man on a written slip, the batsman
followed the instructions verbatim and drove the ball but
it went to the fielder in slip which could have been caught
but the fielder in slip slipped hence the ball slipped out of
his hands.
47.The doctor visited the stable, examined the ill horse and declared that now the health of the horse is stable, and it
will further improve if the horse is being taken away from
the stable.
48.The lawyer said to his client, ‘that he will decide the further course of action only after studying the will of the client's
father. Right now it is not possible to predict what your
father was willing to do about the property. But the client
will have to pay the fee bill shortly.
49.At midnight his wife felt labour pain, hence he carried her
to the hospital but she gave birth to a baby child midway
and he phoned the midwife at midnight only.
50.Film’s female cast casted the vote against the casting
couch feeling it an insult against the female caste.
51.This type of typing which you have typed cannot be
tolerated as it is the worst type of paperwork.
52.He wore the coat before coating paint on his table.
53.The saint told the devotees that the human body is
a cell of millions of cells running on the cell made up
of souls.
54.A watchful man all the time watched the watch,
when he was waiting for someone.
55.The watchmaker taught handful of repairing Tricks
to his apprentice and one day he asked the apprentice
to repair by giving him one second hand watch,
however as soon as the apprentice lay hands on the
watch on hand all the hands i.e. hour’s hand,
minute’s hand and the second’s hand slipped out of
his hands, though the. A handsome apprentice learnt
some handy Tricks but everything went out of hands.
56. Somebody was telling me that the young chap who
used to make passes over young ladies passing away.
57. The anti-government parties say that the
Government forces the forces against terrorist
forces.
58. It is always advisable to shake the shake before using
it, be it mango shake, cherry shake or any other shake.
59. The boss ordered to keep all the files in order till
further orders.
60. Sorry, I am just thoroughly browned off by brown
bagging which my mother browns the brown in brown
goods till it becomes brown as berry. Really it affects me
like brown bottle flue.
61. An Express train can’t be a proper place to express
the views regarding your Family problems by way of expressions.
62. Demonetization of currency in India caused expiration
of currency of notes of Rs. Five hundred and one thousand,
from the mid noon of eighth November two thousand
sixteen.
63. Recently during the raids, it was found by raiding
officers that the raided person was hiding the hides of
different wild animals hideously at different hideouts.
65. During body massages the therapist rubbed the
palm oil on his palms.
Some other examples of strange pronunciations-
1.If you have a rough cough, climbing can be tough when
going through the bough on a tree!
2.There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;
neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
3.English muffins weren’t invented in England.
4.If we explore the 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.
5.And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing,
grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham?
6.Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but
not one amend?
7.If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all
but one of them, what do you call it?
8.If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught?
9.If a vegetarian eats vegetable, what does a
humanitarian eat?
10.In what other language do people recite at a play
and play at a recital?
11.Ship by truck and send cargo by ship?
12.Have noses that run and feet that smell?
13.How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the
same?
14.Why are a wise man and a wise guy opposite?
15.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.
16.If Dad is Pop, how’s come Mom Isn’t Mop?
17.“In the English language there are orphans and
widows, but there is no word for the parents who
lose a child.”
18.The difference between a jeweller and a jailer is
“One sells watch and the other watches cells.”
19.Overlook and overseas are opposite while quite a
lot and quite a few are the same.
20.One day the weather can be hot as hell and on
the other day it might be cold as hell.
21.One can fill in a form by filling it out.
22.Your alarm clock goes off by going on.
Be little more confused-
1.In the words scent, scene and scissor, which letter
is silent? “S” or “C”?
2.Why is there a “D” in the fridge but not in the
refrigerator?
3.If pro and con are opposite, would not the opposite
of progress be congress?
4.Wonder why the word ‘funeral’ starts with fun?
5.How come lipstick does not do what it says?
6.If money does not grow on trees, how come banks have
branches?
7.Why is it called rush hour when the traffic moves at its
slowest?
8.Why do they call it a TV set when there is only one?
9.What are you vacating when you go on vacation?
10.Why do we park our car on the driveway and drive our
car on the parkway?
11.Why do we put cups in the dishwasher and the dishes in the cupboard?
12.If people evolved from monkeys, why are monkeys
still around?
13.Who knew what time it was when the first clock was
made?
14.In a movie theatre which armrest is yours?
15.Why is a fireman not called the waterman?
16.How do you get off from a nonstop flight?
17.Sweetmeats are candies, while sweetbreads—which
aren’t sweet—are meat.
18. During sickness why is human life depending on
practicing doctors?
19.Why are there expiration dates on sour cream?
20.Can an atheist get insurance against the act of god?
21.How is it possible to have a civil war?
Grammar and others Facts Behind Confusions
Homophones
Homophones are words that have the same sound
as another word but are spelled differently and
have different meanings.
Here is a short list of examples.
●two/to/too - I’ll give two of these to you, too.
●they’re/there/their - They’re in there studying for
their test.
●team/teem - Each of the teams teems with talent.
●horse/hoarse - The horse trainer went hoarse
calling out commands all day.
●morning/mourning - The new widower was still
in shock, but he would be mourning by morning.
●ads/adds - The savings from all the ads adds up
over time.
●baron/barren - The baron never had any children
because his wife was barren.
●see/sea - We could all see the ship sinking into the
sea.
●coward/cowered - When the fight started, the
coward cowered in the corner.
●crews/cruise - The crews on the cruise ships worked
hard to make sure everyone enjoyed the experience.
●symbol/cymbal - The drum kit’s manufacturer had its
symbol engraved on the cymbal.
●Words like these can be very confusing for someone
trying to learn conversational English.
Homographs
Homographs are words that have the same spelling but
a different sound and a different meaning:
●Lead means to go in front of or it’s a heavy metal used in
car batteries.
●Wind is a gust of air or it’s what you do to an old clock.
●Bass is the deep sound from your stereo or is a type of fish.
●Sow is what farmers do with seeds in the spring or it’s the
mother of piglets.
●Wound is an injury, but wound is what a clock is after you
wind it.
●A dove is a bird related to a pigeon, but dove is what you
did at the pool last summer.
●Close is what you are when you’re nearby, but close is
what you do to the freezer door to keep the ice cream
from melting.
●A minute is 60 seconds, but something minute is very tiny.
●A record is a vinyl disk containing your parent’s music,
but the record is what you do to your favourite TV show
so you can watch it later.
●Tear means to rip up, but a tear is what falls from your eye
when you’re sad.
Negatives Without Positives
In English, the prefixes in- and un- are used to denote
the opposite of a base word. For example, insane is
the opposite of sane and unsatisfactory is the opposite of satisfactory.
However, as these examples will show, these rules don’t
always apply.
●“Inert” means (among other things) lacking any chemical
reactions. However, there is no word “ert” to indicate the
opposite.
●“Inhibit” means to prevent or discourage from doing
something. There is no word “hibit”.
●If something is “inverted”, it’s upside down. However, if
something is right side up, it’s not called “verted”.
●I’ve met a number of disgruntled people, but I’ve never
met someone that I could call “gruntled”.
●I’ve heard awkward people described as “ungainly” or
“inept”, but I’ve never heard someone described as
“gainly” or “ept”.
Then there are the words “flammable” and “inflammable”.
You’d expect that adding in- to “flammable” would
produce its opposite. In this case, they mean exactly the
same thing!
Odd Spellings
English spelling “rules” seem more like suggestions
than rules. Some words have the same sounds but
use different letter combinations to make those sounds.
Other words use the same letter combinations, but
sound completely different. There are silent letters
that are written but not pronounced, and there are
lists of exceptions to the various rules.
●The letters “ough” can sound like “uff” as in tough,
like “oh” as in though, or like “ot” as in thought.
They can also sound like “ow” as in bough or “off” as
in cough.
●The long “A” sound can be spelled in a variety of ways
such as in pain, weight, great, rein, and mate.
●The long “I” sound can be spelled like in sight, height,
align, isotope, bayou, wine, and rhyme.
●The long “U” sound can be spelled as in do, two, flue,
flu, shoe, threw, who, loom, duty, or chute.
●There are also silent letters such as the “g” in reign,
the “p” in psychotic, the “h” in hour, the “k” in knee,
the “w” in write, and the “b” in doubt, “l” in calm and
talk, “p” and “l” in psalm.
I’m glad I learned all this as a child; this would be
difficult to learn as an adult!
Ghoti
“Ghoti” is a word constructed to illustrate the spelling and pronunciation
irregularities of the English language. The first published
reference to ghoti was in 1874. In this word, the “gh” is
pronounced like the “gh” in the word “tough”, the “o” is pronounced like the “o” in the word “women”, and the
“ti” is pronounced like the “ti” in the word “nation”.
Put that all together, and “ghoti” is pronounced exactly
like “fish”.
To Make It Plural, Add an “S” (Sometimes)
Even a simple task like making a noun plural has its
challenges in English.
Typically, you add an “s” or perhaps an “es” to the
end of the word to make it plural as in book/books
and box/boxes. There are slightly odder words where
you have to replace the last letter (y) with an “ies” as in
lady/ladies and baby/babies.
Then things start to get strange. The plural of “ox” is
“oxen”, not “oxes”.
The plural of “child” is “children” rather than “childs”.
Then there’s tooth/teeth, foot/feet, person/people,
mouse/mice (but not house/hice), knife/knives,
wife/wives, and goose/geese.
There are even words that are both singular and plural depending on the way they’re used. You can have one
deer or five deer, one sheep or a dozen sheep, one
species or many species, one moose or five moose
(never mooses or meese).
Last but not least, There’s one English word that
changes from plural to singular when you add an ‘s’.
It’s ‘Princes’ which becomes ‘Princess’.
Some interesting Oddities in the English language.
1.“Rhythms” is the longest English word without the
normal vowels, a, e, i, o, or u.
2.Excluding derivatives, there are only two words in
English that end –shion and (though many words
end in this sound).
These are cushions and fashion.
3.“THEREIN” is a seven-letter word that contains thirteen
words spelled using consecutive letters: the, he, her, er,
here, I, there, ere, rein, re, in, therein, and herein.
4.There is only one common word in English that has five
vowels in a row: queueing.
5.Soupspoons is the longest word that consists entirely of
letters from the second half of the alphabet.
6.“Almost” is the longest commonly used word in the
English language with all the letters in alphabetical
order.
7.The longest uncommon word whose letters are in
alphabetical order is the eight-letter Aegilops
(a grass genus).
8.The longest common single-word palindromes are
deified, racecar, repaper, reviver, and rotator.
9.“One thousand” contains the letter A, but none of
the words from one to nine hundred ninety-nine has
an A.
10.“The sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick” is said to
be the toughest tongue twister in English.
11.Cwm (pronounced “koom”, defined as a steep-walled
hollow on a hillside) is a rare case of a word used in
English in which w is the nucleus vowel, as is crwth
(pronounced “krooth”, a type of stringed instrument).
Despite their origins in Welsh, they are accepted English
words.
12.“Asthma” and “isthmi” are the only six-letter words that
begin and end with a vowel and have no other vowels
between.
13.The nine-word sequence I, in, sin, sing, sting, string,
staring, starting (or starling), startling can be formed by
successively adding one letter to the previous word.
14.“Underground” and “underfund” are the only words in
the English language that begin and end with the letters
“und.”
15.“Stewardesses” is the longest word that can be typed
with only the left hand.
16.Antidisestablishmentarianism listed in the Oxford English Dictionary, was considered the longest English word for
quite a long time, but today the medical term “pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis” is
usually considered to have the title, despite the fact that
it was coined to provide an Answer to the question
‘What is the longest English word?’.
17.“Dreamt” is the only English word that ends in the letters
“mt”, and damn which ends with “mn”. Likewise, helm and
calm ends with “lm”.
18.There are many words that feature all five regular vowels
in alphabetical order, the commonest being abstemious,
adventitious, facetious.
19.The superlatively long word honorificabilitudinitatibus
(27 letters) alternates consonants and vowels.
20.“Fickle Headed” and “fiddledeedee” are the longest
words consisting only of letters in the first half of the
alphabet.
21.The two longest words with only one of the six vowels
including y are the 15-letter defenselessness and
respectlessness.
22.“Forty” is the only number which has its letters in
alphabetical order. “One” is the only number with
its letters in reverse alphabetical order.
23.Bookkeeper is the only word that has three
consecutive doubled letters.
24.Despite the assertions of a well-known puzzle, modern
English does not have three common words ending
in-gry. Angry and hungry are the only ones.
25.“Ough” can be pronounced in eight different ways.
The following sentence contains them all: “A rough-
coated, dough-faced ploughman strode through the
streets of Scarborough, coughing and hiccoughing
thoughtfully.
26.The only word in the English language with a double
‘i’, ‘skiing’.
27.The word ‘typewriter’ can be typed using only the
keys on the top line of a qwerty keyboard.
