Elusive English - Why the English Language Is So Hard To Learn

What did they say?

This post is going to talk about a peripheral, but fundamental, element to both writing and publishing.

The language used to paint stories, legal contracts, instructions, teaching lessons, laws, campaign point papers, jokes, directions etc., etc., etc.

What would we do without our languages? And even with them, some people still tend to interpret the same words differently! Talk about bending the subject to suit their own purposes :)

If anything, we all should pause, reflect and appreciate what people go through when learning to communicate AND write in another language.

Now, all languages must have their eccentricities, but I believe English is probably one of the hardest languages to learn. Why? Too many words having the same spelling but different meanings and even pronunciations at times.

Time to have a little fun :) Here are just some of the reasons why the English language is so hard to learn:


> The bandage was wound around the wound.

This is too HARD! I don't understand 

> The farm was used to produce produce.

> The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

> We must polish the Polish furniture.

> He could lead if he would get the lead out.

> The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

> Since there is no time like the present, she thought it was time to present the present.

> A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

> When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

> I did not object to the object.

> The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

> There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

> They were too close to the door to close it.

> The buck does funny things when the does are present.

> A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

> To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

> The wind was too strong for the mates to wind the sail.

> After a number of injections, my jaw got number.

> Upon seeing the tear in the painting, I shed a tear.

> I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

> How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?


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Oxford Dictionary Leaving Print

The English language has always been an active, dynamic, ever-changing language; one, quite frankly, that the past printed dictionaries could not adequately keep pace with.

Much like traditional publishing could not adequately keep pace with all the past incoming writing talent. Even when the big publishing houses employed full staffs, they could not keep up; hence "slush piles" were created and old stories were born about all the great, past authors who were initially rejected numerous times before finally getting published.

But, I digress!

This report comes from staff writers at heraldsun.com.au (a great Austrailian resource, by the way):

A TEAM of 80 has been working on it for the past 21 years, but now the lexicographers compiling the third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary are being told that it will never appear in print, its owner has admitted in a report today.

The dictionary’s owner, Oxford University Press (OUP), has said that the impact of the internet means the latest update to the definitive record of the English language will never be published as a book.

"The print dictionary market is just disappearing, it is falling away by tens of percent a year," said Nigel Portwood, chief executive of OUP. Asked if he thought the third edition would be printed, he said: "I don’t think so."

The OED will live on online, where it has already been available for a decade and receives two million hits a month. An annual subscription costs £205 (US$217) plus value added tax (VAT).

OUP also gets royalty payments from Google, which uses an unbranded Oxford dictionary in its search engine.

Google was added to the dictionary as a verb in 2006, a century after HG Wells, in his novel "The Sleeper Awakes," first envisaged all literature appearing on screen rather than in books.

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