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40 Times People Were Confused By The English Language
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Blessed be those who didn't have to go through the trouble of learning the English language. Some might say that learning Japanese or Icelandic might be the most difficult task out there, but even the most complicated aspects of those languages have some kind of logic behind them. English grammar and the language itself, on the other hand, has some truly nonsensical characteristics to it and a plethora of arbitrary rules.
Those with English as their native language never have to consciously work through the kinks of spelling out Wednesday or why writers write, but fingers don't fing and grocers don't groce. Learning English as a secondary language is a real minefield once you figure out the basic grammar rules and step into more specific areas. And these people decided to point some of the most confusing things out there to prove their point. English is a weird language and at times makes no sense whatsoever, especially for a language that is so widespread.
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Who's up for the defenestration of Donald Trump. I say we do it overmorrow.
In German, where you have words for Everything, it's literally called window-toppling. But it only has three renown applications in history (which is probably why there's an English word too): The first, second and third defenestration of Prague (the latter of which wasn't even a real defenestration, just plain murder).
In Swedish we have and use the words overmorrow (övermorgon) and ereyesterday (förrgår).
They exist and are used every day in most European (at least) languages. That's why a person is wondering why they don't exist in English. :)
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My ancestor was defenestrated from Prague Castle in 1618. (Fun fact: he didn't die!)
Defenestration was a historic event, I believe many European countries have this word because of this (in Polish it's similar - defenestracja; comes from latin). It happened in Prague (3 times actually, but the 2nd had most impact worldwide since it's believed to be a reason for the 30 years war).
In European Latin languages it exists, too. It has two meanings: literally means to throw someone out of the window but it's commonly used with the meaning of quickly putting someone out of his post, often in politics.
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Ere yesterday? Used to be common in the west of Ireland among native Irish language speakers ( in Gaeltacht areas) & nearby communities. Elsewhere in Ireland too, perhaps. Distinctly a mark of the less-well-educated, possibly a hangover from much earlier usage in English. Huh..
I'm tempted to say that I've never heard of the word "overmorrow" before, which of course doesn't mean that the word doesn't exist but I suspect it's a pretty obscure and rarely-used word. But then, how often do you hear someone say "defenstration"?
Fenster is the german word for window. No one uses it, but knowing that makes this word make sense.
“Defenestration” derives from the Latin “fenester” = window. With prefix “de-“ = from / out of. Also from the French “ fenetre” = window + “de-“ out of. You’re welcome. Welcome 🤗
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Hey, exactly the same word in french. Perhaps, centuries ago people realy enjoyed thowing things through windows like we do enjoy watching things being crushed on YouTube 🙃
Defenestration caused three of the biggest international conflicts in History.
Defenestration is not even english word lol, but latin originally, used across whole europe (for ex in west slavic languages as well :) )
I think that word actually comes from a historical incident. It sounds like over use of Latin.
Well, in portuguese we kind have both: defenestrar and "depois-de-amanha"
"defenestration" is originally a french word. "Fenêtre" means "window". The circumflex accent indicates that in old french, "fenêtre" was written "fenestre".
Not French but Latin, that's why most romanic languages have a similar word to say "window": finestra, fiestra, etc.
Load More Replies... Not english word, it's from latin and Czech has it too and it's quite popular here :D
Dude, it’s an English word. A LOT of English words are from Latin. That doesn’t make them not English.
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Overmorrow is not recognize by Google Translate... and, it's curious because in some areas, in spanish, defenestration is when someone talks trash about someone else...
Sounds German. Das fenster. Or is it die fenster? I forgot.
singular = das Fenster plural = die Fenster As you can see, both are right.
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It comes from the French word défenestration, the verb is défenestrer, and the root is fenêtre, witch means window.
Defenstrate comes from the french word fenestre, which translates as window.
To be fair, many linguists would easily find a logical answer to most of the problems presented in these messages, as English language has a lot of nuances (like words being borrowed from Latin and Greek, or the fact that some words had their origins lost or they ceased to be used in spoken language). However, that doesn't mean that they still don't fail to confuse people trying to learn the language, as even the most sound explanation might seem nonsensical when the original problem could be solved by, well... changing the language? Ah, let's leave this for the linguists to figure out and non-native speakers to be confused about, right?
It took me a while to remember which one is positive and which one is negative between horriffic and terrfic...
OMl when I was younger my friend and I had a lengthy discussion on this lol And yes, I am a native English speaker.
"I before e except after C" is how I learned it in 6th grade. Except in "ancient" (which I later missed on the spelling test!).
I feel like slim chance still has some small chance while fat chance has no chance at all...
I think this depends on what country you're from. It only means the second one in the UK.
Note: this post originally had 48 images. It’s been shortened to the top 40 images based on user votes.
I had a non English guest who wanted to see a dentist but all the ones he found were at Dental Practices - he didn't want to be practiced on, he wanted one who knew what they were doing
tell your guest practice makes perfect
I used to think that the practice nurse was practising on me Lol!
If the building is already built, why we still call building?
What? You don't work in a built?
Something about root words blah blah blah. IDK.
I'm not drunk, I'm still drinking
Why are we like this... I'm English and I still don't understand why we are like this ._.
From what I understand, it has to do with all the conquering that happened way back in the day. The people who eventually became English were very good about incorporating the conquerors' language in with their own, which is why there are so many words (double that of German) and so many nuances. **steps down from podium**
The Romans, the Vikings, and the Normands. And then the English became conquerors themselves and brought back words such as Avatar, Bandanna, Cot, Dungaree, Guru, Jungle, Karma, Loot, Mogul, Nirvana, Pyjamas, Shampoo, Thug, Veranda, and Yoga. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Hindi_or_Urdu_origin
Speaking for myself, I love the chaos of my language. But then I tend to gravitate toward chaos in all things.
I've stopped trying to curse in English because once I said "how should we fuck this" instead of "how should we fucking do this" and I was laughed at, thinking I did it in jest. I didn't. I really thought that was how you curse in English.
No, non-native speakers should cuss frequently:-) It’s funny and it’s interesting because errors lay bare the underlying structure of the language, stuff one doesn’t normally notice if one’s a native speaker
As a worker from a central European country once said to us " You think I know fuck nothing, but I tell you I know fuck all".
English is not a language, it’s a perpetrator that takes other languages down dark allies, beats them to a pulp and robs them. 😂
i live in switzerland and it's quite frustrating that for words like "du", "dir", "dich", "Ihr", "Sie", "Ihnen", "euch", which are pronouns, in english you simply translate ALL OF THEM into the word "you"
What gets me is that "I'm gonna see if I can't catch that ball" and "I'm gonna see if I can catch that ball" mean the same thing.
I like how some people actually answered the questions.
The big problem is that English is a mishmash of other different languages that all have their own rules! You have Greek, Latin, French, Norse & Spanish roots, just to name a few, and they all have their own grammar, etc, as displayed above.
It's mostly german and french
Gallagher and english language! YouTube it and laugh with me....
क्या चूतिया भाषा है !
There, their, they're...
The worst aspect of the English language for writers is the lack of a gender neutral first person singular. Ex: A good employee knows that they have to be on time. NO! employee is singular they is plural Ex. A good employee knows he has to be on time. NO! This assumes the employee is male (unfounded sexism). Ex. A good employee knows that s/he has to bee on time. NO? Acceptable in some circles but still not perfect. Pity the poor writer who has to use English.
Singular 'they' does have a long history and should simply be accepted. There's also 'it' which is the true neutral first person singular. Some people prefer it. I don't, but it is an option.
It started out as a perfectly good Tuesday, then you people had to grammar all over it
The thing about English is it's a mess but at the same time it's kind of super flexible. So I can generally understand what people mean to say when they make technical errors. That's why people get called out with "You know what I meant." when they correct people. It takes a lot of errors to make a sentence that's completely incomprehensible and it's easy for two people to say the same thing and mean completely opposite things. That's just English.
I know 4 languages & all of them are like this!
Here's a funny little story: my fist language as a toddler was english second one german. "Lost" a lot of the english as I am barely using it. BUT: I speak german with english melody
Don't get me started on Croatian
I'm Persian & as a foreigner the word "The" is the most stupid thing I see in English. The second one is gender base changes. Why having different words for different genders?!! It's just a characteristic of a person.
Soba, calm down. C wasn’t calling YOU French. S/he was using French as an example of languages that use masculine/feminine articles. Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese all use feminine and masculine articles. English does not. These linguistic quirks have worked for centuries in their individual countries. No need to get your knickers in a wad over something you cannot change.
Your opinion is noted and will be kept in File 13. Have a nice day.
Being an Englishman I really enjoyed this post, learned something too.
I'll just leave this here: https://www.englishclub.com/esl-articles/199909.htm
I recommend attempting The Chaos by Gerard Nolst Trenite, it really gets you thinking about the English language.
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I'm always searching for an English ambivalent to the German word "Doch!", like: Kid: "I'm not gonna do my homework!" Parents in Germany: "Doch!" Parents in english: "You will do!" 🤷🏼♀️
Some languages borrow words from other languages. English hits other languages over the head in a dark alley and steals all their vocabulary. No wonder English has words spelled according to Greek, Latin, German, French, Spanish, Arabic, Hebrew, and Hindi rules - to name jut a few. "Stephan (greek) and (German) Peter (Latin) saw (german) Satan (Hebrew) flaunting (french) his pyjamas (Himdu) like a maniac (greek) samurai (japanese) jihadi (arabic)." Suspicous, in more ways than one.
Why can I wear a windbreaker -- but I can't say that it breaks wind? (Also, I'm surprised that the contributor found *ONLY* 40 examples...)
There was a photo on Facebook a while ago of a ship shipping shipping ship shipping shipping ships! Say that a few times while drunk 😀
Phonetics is spelt with a "ph." The English language makes no sense!
Mine is the fact that we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway. Also the fact that what we call football uses hands more than feet.
Why is "abbreviation" such a long word?
When I was doing my PGDE in post-compulsory adult literacy, we would often share stories about our learners. A classmate of mine was teaching at an ESOL, (English for Speakers of Other Languages), centre and one of her learners approached her and asked why "quite a bit" and "quite a lot" meant the same thing. She explained that the English language was ridiculous.
Why do we drive on a parkway and park in a driveway?
AUSTRALIA: 3 different pronunciations of the same vowel.
Try explaining to a foreign friend why, in America, we park on a driveway and drive on parkway.
So many of these people are unnecessarily upset over minor complications and contradictions. How will they face the vagaries of real life?
Sometimes words can help with the meaning by appearing as a symbol, instead of how you pronounce it. There could be a lot of meanings for Q but just 1 meaning for Queue (at least in English) : )
These are some of the many reasons I find joy in being a linguist!
Let's remember Pacific Ocean which has three "c" in it pronounced differently!
English is a lousy language. Whom may we scold for using it?
Gideon and pigeon... just droppin that on in there.
English is definitely not a hard language to learn in comparison to other languages...but damn does it have quirks.