The English language is stupid.

The English language is stupid.

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cobra kid

4,906 posts

239 months

Wednesday 18th January 2017
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I sit ON the kop at Hillsborough, but could sit IN the stand if I wanted.

paulrockliffe

15,639 posts

226 months

Wednesday 18th January 2017
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Mr Snrub said:
Below par - substandard, not good enough
Below par in a game of golf - a good thing, what you're actually trying to achieve
That's nothing to do with language, what's good is defined by the order of the numbers it relates to, if that makes sense.

SKP555

1,114 posts

125 months

Wednesday 18th January 2017
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768 said:
SKP555 said:
Why do you get in a car but on a train?
You sit yourself into an enclosed space. You walk onto a surface.

And if you're a Geography teacher who's taken a wrong turn in life, you then sit on that surface and pretend there are no free seats to sit in to the media.
That makes sense to a point. Though I still get on a plane, then get off and into a convertible. To drive in the sun. On holiday.

At least I would if I was in the money. Actually I'm on a tight budget. I was nearly in trouble but now I'm on a roll.


There is a logic to it, but it's quite subtle to explain to someone learning the language.

stanthebiker

539 posts

184 months

Wednesday 18th January 2017
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battered said:
Someone asked about Finnish – no thanks. It has, iirc, 7 cases for each noun.
As someone who is learning Finnish, I must correct you in the nicest way possible. It has 15 cases! FIFTEEN! What fun! wobble

That's before we get into the complete lack of any latin or greek influence apart from the occasional borrowed word like 'hotelli'.

I do enjoy learning it in a masochistic kind of way though, and the VERY rare occasion when I actually manage to get through a situation in Finland without either them or I resorting to English is very satisfying.

andy-xr

13,204 posts

203 months

Wednesday 18th January 2017
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Yet it's one where it's native speakers are probably the most lenient in actually understanding what you're trying to say. Pedants and gramme/ar Nazi's aside.

If someone's speaking or writing English, you can pretty much gather what they're trying to say. It might need a bit of clarification, but rarely is it corrected to a foreigner. Compared to eg French where you can say the exact thing but not quite have the accent, and the person will look at you like you're drooling and gibbering. Then they'lls ay it themselves, exactly how you said it and will completely make sense to them

English, while hard to learn is fairly forgiving as a language and usually by it's speakers

battered

4,088 posts

146 months

Wednesday 18th January 2017
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stanthebiker said:
As someone who is learning Finnish, I must correct you in the nicest way possible. It has 15 cases! FIFTEEN! What fun! wobble

That's before we get into the complete lack of any latin or greek influence apart from the occasional borrowed word like 'hotelli'.

I do enjoy learning it in a masochistic kind of way though, and the VERY rare occasion when I actually manage to get through a situation in Finland without either them or I resorting to English is very satisfying.
I stand corrected. 15. Ouch. That will teach you to mess about with the Ungaro-Finnish group.
I must also correct you in the nicest way possible. It seems that in your haste to learn the Finnish cases you have forgotten those in English.biggrin
The correct form of your last sentence is "without them or me resorting to English".smile

Sorry.teacher


Edited by battered on Wednesday 18th January 13:26

DuncB7

353 posts

97 months

Wednesday 18th January 2017
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All these issues before we've even got to names of places in the UK.

Some local-ish ones that have baffled me over the years. Unless you already know, I almost guarantee your first attempt will be incorrect:

Finzean, Aberdeenshire
Culzean Castle, Ayrshire (pronunciation from the above doesn't apply)
Garioch, Aberdeenshire (some users may know through whisky)
Milngavie, East Dumbartonshire

confused

Oh, and quay or quayside banghead

battered

4,088 posts

146 months

Wednesday 18th January 2017
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DuncB7 said:
All these issues before we've even got to names of places in the UK.

Some local-ish ones that have baffled me over the years. Unless you already know, I almost guarantee your first attempt will be incorrect:

Finzean, Aberdeenshire
Culzean Castle, Ayrshire (pronunciation from the above doesn't apply)
Garioch, Aberdeenshire (some users may know through whisky)
Milngavie, East Dumbartonshire

confused

Oh, and quay or quayside banghead
That's because those place names aren't from the English language. Nor is quay, it's from the French "quai".

DuncB7

353 posts

97 months

Wednesday 18th January 2017
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battered said:
Nor is quay, it's from the French "quai".
Not once have I seen it as 'quai' in the UK.

K12beano

20,854 posts

274 months

Wednesday 18th January 2017
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DuncB7 said:
battered said:
Nor is quay, it's from the French "quai".
Not once have I seen it as 'quai' in the UK.
¿Que?

Einion Yrth

19,575 posts

243 months

Wednesday 18th January 2017
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battered said:
DuncB7 said:
All these issues before we've even got to names of places in the UK.

Some local-ish ones that have baffled me over the years. Unless you already know, I almost guarantee your first attempt will be incorrect:

Finzean, Aberdeenshire
Culzean Castle, Ayrshire (pronunciation from the above doesn't apply)
Garioch, Aberdeenshire (some users may know through whisky)
Milngavie, East Dumbartonshire

confused

Oh, and quay or quayside banghead
That's because those place names aren't from the English language. Nor is quay, it's from the French "quai".
And in the first two the "z" isn't a "z" it's yogh.

Cold

15,207 posts

89 months

Wednesday 18th January 2017
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DuncB7 said:
battered said:
Nor is quay, it's from the French "quai".
Not once have I seen it as 'quai' in the UK.
Newquay is a seaside town in Cornwall. It's currently -7C on top of Mount Norquay in Canada. Similar names, different pronunciations.

Halmyre

11,147 posts

138 months

Wednesday 18th January 2017
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Cleave - split something apart, and also join things together.

Then there's coherent = logical or consistent, and incoherent = not logical or consistent. Now apply that convention (sticking 'in' on the front of a word) to flammable.

And the perfectly sensible word 'outwith', as in outside the bounds of a defined limit - except that it's rarely used outwith Scotland.

Einion Yrth

19,575 posts

243 months

Wednesday 18th January 2017
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Halmyre said:
Then there's coherent = logical or consistent, and incoherent = not logical or consistent. Now apply that convention (sticking 'in' on the front of a word) to flammable.
Flame -> flammable
Inflame -> inflammable

It isn't that convention, it just looks like it. wink

battered

4,088 posts

146 months

Wednesday 18th January 2017
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I didn’t know “cleave” could mean to join. I too like “outwith” and while I’m not Scottish I have adopted it as a useful word.
Inflammable is the original word, from the Latin “inflammare” (=enflame) apparently, and the “in” is not to be taken in its normal sense of “not”. It seems also that “flammable” is a later invention for use in science and engineering that very sensibly sets out to clarify what the word means and eliminate dangerous confusion.

Johnnytheboy

24,498 posts

185 months

Wednesday 18th January 2017
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I appreciate they aren't Anglo-Saxon in origin, but I like the fact 'patio' and 'ratio' don't rhyme.

Huff

3,140 posts

190 months

Wednesday 18th January 2017
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Cleave is a good one, meaning both of cut apart and clinging-together.

Living in Somerset is interesting - bits of straight Saxon survive in the dialect. two simple examples: Wops, wasp, is the Saxon original before it got Spoonerised into its more familiar modern form; and bits of the German verb sein, to be, exist in greetings - ''ow bist?' to a mate for example (but 'Ow'art thee? is just as likely!)

Yes the intimate 'thee' survives too, lost to much of modern English (along with printed representation of 'letters' thorn, the yoch and the Eth) in the shift to a movable-type; defined by Guttenberg on the middle German alphabet primarily. Making-up the resulting 3 missing letters for English by subtitution of nearest type shapes (th, z, Y)as it was has led to the kind of thing now parodied in 'Ye olde'... by a people who've long forgotten it actually should still be pronounced 'The...'

Thorn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(letter)
Yoch
https://sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoch
Eth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eth

Edited by Huff on Wednesday 18th January 20:22

anonymous-user

53 months

Friday 20th January 2017
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I work with people all over the world (50+ countries), and the common view from them is that English is probably the easiest language to get to the stage where people understand you. However that lack of strict rules makes it very hard to perfect.

For example 'Pub I go', 'I go pub', 'Go I pub', 'Us pub' 'Pub us' etc would most likely all be understood, but the lots of the phrases above would be a nightmare

Huff

3,140 posts

190 months

Friday 20th January 2017
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Having learned it a couple of decades ago as a postgrad working abroad - nah, Malay is likely the easiest to make oneself fully understood in.

Essentially a c.500yr+ old trading language that agglomerates Straits Chinese (Hakka a& Hokkien dialect vocab) , Portuguese, and Arabic (esp the number system) it's ...not difficult. No verb cases; plurals made by doubling the noun (orang* - man; orang-orang - people; ramai orang = crowd - ok, that's about as irregular as it gets!).

No tenses either - when something happens is indicated by intonation and essentially five simple constructions of where and where you place (or don't use = present) the word 'sudah' ('already' / 'done') in the sentence. The most difficult element for a native English speaker is probably that everything is counted in 'classes': Dua ekor kuching - two 'tails' of cat - not 'two cats' - for example, and similar: there is a 'class' noun for every kind of thing to be enumerated, 43 cases/use classes to learn ... but each is then also modified by example.

Much of the vocab sticks with me yet, as striking examples of the trading roots: ayam Belanda = dutch chicken. That's a turkey, to you or me; a legacy of Dutch East Indies company....

Basically, with a little coaxing in intonation and learning a surprisingly-small boxful of vocabulary, you can be polite and utterly conversant in a very short while, & gets much easier with immersion. Worked for me attempting to run construction projects on Borneo at no notice. Also greatly & appreciatively aided by an utterly lovely people who reach out and reciprocate greatly when you 'give face' by attempting to speak their language & appreciate politesse well. I went expecting 2-3months, stayed for >>2years, and the people I met were the reason why.




  • and yes 'orang utan' - 'man of the jungle'. Our orange long-limbed elder brethren. Ook.
Edited by Huff on Friday 20th January 23:47

bloomen

6,845 posts

158 months

Saturday 21st January 2017
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wsurfa said:
I work with people all over the world (50+ countries), and the common view from them is that English is probably the easiest language to get to the stage where people understand you. However that lack of strict rules makes it very hard to perfect.

For example 'Pub I go', 'I go pub', 'Go I pub', 'Us pub' 'Pub us' etc would most likely all be understood, but the lots of the phrases above would be a nightmare
I think the tolerance English speakers have for its idiosyncratic interpretations is a large factor.

I used to live in Italy. There if you ask for Rizlas 500 times in a row they will not have the slightest clue what you're on about and eventually ignore you. If you ask for Reeezlas then you're instantly golden.

I once enquired about a 'L'euatus'. Utterly clueless. When I asked about a Lottus then they suddenly had a car to hand. It was a little pathetic.