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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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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?
#6
SykesDaMan 6 years ago
It took me a while to remember which one is positive and which one is negative between horriffic and terrfic...
#11
#14
Artex Gorilla 6 years ago
Brits also use 'Quite' in a sarcastic manner if agreeing with someone (who they don't agree with).
#18
#22
#23
Emily Ashcraft 6 years ago
one is used by the people of sarcasm and one is used by regular people
#25
Aldhissla VargTimmen 6 years ago
There's a broadcasted spelling competition for the Dutch language as well ^^ Dutch is easier though, makes more sense :)
#30
George Utley 6 years ago
Fridge is a slang shortening of one of the original refrigerators - Fridgidaire...
#31
Phil Boswell 6 years ago
Same way that the sentence "I never said she stole all my money" takes on a completely different meaning depending upon which particular word you emphasise…
#33
#38
Jack Lambrecht 6 years ago
Awful and Nice both used to mean their opposites
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Daniel (ShadowDrakken) 6 years ago
No, because the word you're thinking of is aweful, which DOES mean full of awe. Awful is unrelated.
Mary Rose Kent 6 years ago
I’m really ready for people to expand their vocabulary beyond awesome, which I’ve come to refer to as The A-Word. Fabulous, fantastic, wonderful, terrific, etc.
Jason M 6 years ago
Fabulous is not allowed to be said in the south. Fantastic, Wonderful and Terrific are often used sarcastically.
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Pseudo Puppy 6 years ago
They both come from the word "awe". The suffixes "-some" and "-ful" mean "having the quality of X". ie "having the quality of awe", or "to be awe-ispiring". "Awe" can be inspired by something good or bad (think or the jaw-dropping response to watching a horror car accident, vs your favourite band in concert. Both inspire "awe" for different reasons). "Awful" was in existence before "awesome". Because negative emotions are stronger, "awful" was related more strongly to negative connotations. "Awesome" came about later, to more clearly distinguish / replace the positive contexts that "awful" originally related to ie it was created for more linguistic clarity. (oh the irony!)
Monika Soffronow 6 years ago (edited)
"The words have been around hundreds and hundreds of years. While they were constructed by combining awe with -ful or -some, once they became lexical items as complete words, their meaning was able to drift like any other lexical item — the fact that each word is composed of a stem and suffix doesn't stop this. (Also, bear in mind that -some, the suffix, doesn't mean "some of X", it means "having the quality of X". Think fearsome, loathsome, cumbersome. And -ful is basically the same as -some in its meaning, with all words.)" Read more here-> https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/6802/awesome-vs-awful
Michael Capriola Jr. 4 years ago
During the crucifixion scene in "King of Kings" John Wayne was hired to play a Centurion and was supposed to look at Jesus on the Cross and say, "Surely he was the Son of God." He was drunk that day, and the director wanted to do another take. "Duke, put some awe into your voice. So Wayne said, "Awe, surely he was the Son of God."
Kelly Hartle 6 years ago
Awful and awesome used to be synonyms--awful originally meant "full of awe."
Amaranthim Talon 6 years ago
Because once upon a time awful meant "full of Awe" as in, "God is full of awe" - or aweful. With time it changed..
Kathy Baylis 6 years ago
I commented above about that. Awesome used to mean terrible, because being in awe was associated with being horrified. The word evolved, in everyday use, to the point of flipping its original meaning.
mandy randall 6 years ago
It's because if you in awe of something it's positive if you are in aw it's either neutral or bad or good yes fu now I think about it more. Weird that we are told English is the hardest language to learn yet most people who do not live in native English can speak their native language and English but most people whom live in the areas of English tend to only be able to speak english. Hmmm?
#44
Dave Walker 6 years ago
Try saying you'll meet a Continental European at "Half Eight" and see what time he arrives...
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What do you think ?
MonsterMum 6 years ago
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
CookieNeerrrrd 6 years ago
Why are we like this... I'm English and I still don't understand why we are like this ._.
CrunChewy McSandybutt 6 years ago
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**
Load More Replies...
nanashi 6 years ago
I've stopped trying to curse in English because once I said "how should we f**k this" instead of "how should we f*****g 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.
Tina Hugh 6 years ago
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
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Florence Hastings 6 years ago
English is not a language, it’s a perpetrator that takes other languages down dark allies, beats them to a pulp and robs them. 😂
Ale_Vidal23 6 years ago
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"
Lisa Shelton 6 years ago
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.
Laura Lawson 6 years ago
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.
John Louis 6 years ago
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.
Demi Zwaan 6 years ago
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.
Load More Replies...
Chyppa Homer 6 years ago
It started out as a perfectly good Tuesday, then you people had to grammar all over it
SurrealKit 6 years ago
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.
Matthew Smith 6 years ago
Being an Englishman I really enjoyed this post, learned something too.
SykesDaMan 6 years ago
I'll just leave this here: https://www.englishclub.com/esl-articles/199909.htm
Foxxy 6 years ago
I recommend attempting The Chaos by Gerard Nolst Trenite, it really gets you thinking about the English language.
Sulu Chewy 1 year ago
Like everything else that was stolen or taken, so was the language. So I wonder, what was the language like before the conquistadors conquered?
Michael Sternberg 1 year ago
I live in Israel and one of my neighbors has a good point he’s trying to learn English and noticed that in all Hebrew English or English Hebrew dictionaries there are pronunciation guides for Hebrew even though Hebrew has almost no exceptions to the pronunciation rules but none for the English
Marie-Ève Girard-Dubreuil 4 years ago
I have a question for the frenchies out there. Why do we translate some places like New Mexico, New Orleans, New England but not New York or New Hampshire? I want to know!!
Avital Pilpel 6 years ago
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.
Edwin Quantrall 6 years ago
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...)
Laura Osborne 6 years ago
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 😀
Allison Reina Cellura 6 years ago
Phonetics is spelt with a "ph." The English language makes no sense!
Carol McClellan 6 years ago
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.
Gemma Lees 6 years ago (edited)
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.
bill marsano 6 years ago
So many of these people are unnecessarily upset over minor complications and contradictions. How will they face the vagaries of real life?
Monday 6 years ago
English is definitely not a hard language to learn in comparison to other languages...but damn does it have quirks.
Anthony J Cornish 6 years ago
English is an easy language to learn for rudimentary understanding but to speak British English really well is very difficult as there are too many words that we know mean almost the same thing.....but not quite.
Load More Replies...
Bob Beltcher 6 years ago
All of this is because the English language is comprised of multiple other languages and not just one.
Lance LaRocque 6 years ago
Just to mess them up more introduce these English words borrowed from the French language: garçon, café, façade, coup d'état, coup de théâtre, and coup de grâce. The list does go on.
Magpie 6 years ago
How do I add a post to the thread ?. I have TEN ways to say the letter O. ___________ one ( wu ) . won. ( u). Woman women ( woo / wi ) _______ Go to top. Form. cow. word.
C. Peirce Terry 6 years ago
The people that figured these out are are very smart. They have dissected lots of words.
Scott Critchley 6 years ago
#34 - English might not have a plural form of you, but Aussie/Kiwi do (yous) and so do southern Americans (y'all)!
Sasy 6 years ago
Australians try very hard not to use yous, it is a horrible sounding word
Load More Replies...
Melody Shanahan-Kluth 6 years ago
In Lincolnshire (UK) Old Boy can mean both a young lad or a very old man :) I love the English language, it keeps everyone on their toes!
MonsterMum 6 years ago
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
CookieNeerrrrd 6 years ago
Why are we like this... I'm English and I still don't understand why we are like this ._.
CrunChewy McSandybutt 6 years ago
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**
Load More Replies... nanashi 6 years ago
I've stopped trying to curse in English because once I said "how should we f**k this" instead of "how should we f*****g 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.
Tina Hugh 6 years ago
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
Load More Replies... Florence Hastings 6 years ago
English is not a language, it’s a perpetrator that takes other languages down dark allies, beats them to a pulp and robs them. 😂
Ale_Vidal23 6 years ago
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"
Lisa Shelton 6 years ago
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.
Laura Lawson 6 years ago
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.
John Louis 6 years ago
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.
Demi Zwaan 6 years ago
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.
Load More Replies... Chyppa Homer 6 years ago
It started out as a perfectly good Tuesday, then you people had to grammar all over it
SurrealKit 6 years ago
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.
Matthew Smith 6 years ago
Being an Englishman I really enjoyed this post, learned something too.
SykesDaMan 6 years ago
I'll just leave this here: https://www.englishclub.com/esl-articles/199909.htm
Foxxy 6 years ago
I recommend attempting The Chaos by Gerard Nolst Trenite, it really gets you thinking about the English language.
Sulu Chewy 1 year ago
Like everything else that was stolen or taken, so was the language. So I wonder, what was the language like before the conquistadors conquered?
Michael Sternberg 1 year ago
I live in Israel and one of my neighbors has a good point he’s trying to learn English and noticed that in all Hebrew English or English Hebrew dictionaries there are pronunciation guides for Hebrew even though Hebrew has almost no exceptions to the pronunciation rules but none for the English
Marie-Ève Girard-Dubreuil 4 years ago
I have a question for the frenchies out there. Why do we translate some places like New Mexico, New Orleans, New England but not New York or New Hampshire? I want to know!!
Avital Pilpel 6 years ago
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.
Edwin Quantrall 6 years ago
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...)
Laura Osborne 6 years ago
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 😀
Allison Reina Cellura 6 years ago
Phonetics is spelt with a "ph." The English language makes no sense!
Carol McClellan 6 years ago
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.
Gemma Lees 6 years ago (edited)
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.
bill marsano 6 years ago
So many of these people are unnecessarily upset over minor complications and contradictions. How will they face the vagaries of real life?
Monday 6 years ago
English is definitely not a hard language to learn in comparison to other languages...but damn does it have quirks.
Anthony J Cornish 6 years ago
English is an easy language to learn for rudimentary understanding but to speak British English really well is very difficult as there are too many words that we know mean almost the same thing.....but not quite.
Load More Replies... Bob Beltcher 6 years ago
All of this is because the English language is comprised of multiple other languages and not just one.
Lance LaRocque 6 years ago
Just to mess them up more introduce these English words borrowed from the French language: garçon, café, façade, coup d'état, coup de théâtre, and coup de grâce. The list does go on.
Magpie 6 years ago
How do I add a post to the thread ?. I have TEN ways to say the letter O. ___________ one ( wu ) . won. ( u). Woman women ( woo / wi ) _______ Go to top. Form. cow. word.
C. Peirce Terry 6 years ago
The people that figured these out are are very smart. They have dissected lots of words.
Scott Critchley 6 years ago
#34 - English might not have a plural form of you, but Aussie/Kiwi do (yous) and so do southern Americans (y'all)!
Sasy 6 years ago
Australians try very hard not to use yous, it is a horrible sounding word
Load More Replies... Melody Shanahan-Kluth 6 years ago
In Lincolnshire (UK) Old Boy can mean both a young lad or a very old man :) I love the English language, it keeps everyone on their toes!
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