George Carlin would love this thread . . . he made a mint doing language humor . . .
Personally, i've always felt cheated when buying shampoo, why won't anyone sell me real poo?
If being serious for a split second isn't considered a mortal sin here, I'll add this. I have actually heard semi-literate people use the word 'amend' as in 'I made an amend to him because I had harmed him' in the singular. Shocking but a true fact.
(And what, pray, is a false fact?)
Love the shampoo thingy, Setana! ...And MA, I'm not quite sure what you'd
call a "false fact," but they certainly aren't too hard to
find on the Internet.
Isn't it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do "practice"?
I've always been amused by redundancies, e.g. 'free gift' or ' false pretenses.' Isn't a gift free by definition? And what other kinds of pretenses, besides false, are there? 'Personal opinion' is another bagaboo. If I have an opinion, it is obviously personal, not someone else's.
..Why do we say something is out of whack? What's a whack?
..Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery?
..If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?
..Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?
..When someone asks you, "A penny for your thoughts" and you put your two cents in ... what happens to the other penny?
..Why is a person who plays the piano called a pianist but a person who drives a race car not called a racist?
..Why are a wise man and a wise guy opposites?
..Why do overlook and oversee mean opposite things?
.."I am" is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that "I do " is the longest sentence?
..If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, doesn't it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged, models deposed, tree surgeons debarked, and dry cleaners depressed?
..if the Jacksonville Jaguars are known as the "Jags" and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are known as the "Bucs", what does that make the Tennessee Titans?
..If 4 out of 5 people SUFFER from diarrhea ... does that mean the fifth one enjoys it?
Which would you rather be given: Short Shrift or Long Shrift?
An acquaintance of mine -- well, actually, she's an acquaintance of several others as well, but anyway, as I was saying, there's this well acquainted personage who is all the time using the expression "in actual fact", which, to be honest, drives me up the flippin' wall and makes me wanna ask "Don't you mean 'a factual act' like, for instance if I was to belt you one every time you say 'in actual fact'? -- but I don't -- say it or belt her, neither. But it really does grind my crank when she starts off like that because I know she's about to contradict somthing I'd just got done saying.
I notice this a lot in folks; whenever I say something, they come back with a buncha facts. Well I don't want facts -- I don't need facts -- I already got 'em or I wouldn't have said anything in the first place. Because, in fact, actual or otherwise, I go strictly by what Mark Twain said, "Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you want."
But then, like Groucho Marx put it , "these days everybody wants to get in the act; they just don't wanna get caught in it."
Yes, indeedy, Debacle, yes indeedy. People who say "in actual fact" should be flayed and filleted. Apropos of that, I always assume that anyone who begins to tell me something by first saying, "I'll tell you the truth..." or "To be honest with you..." is undoubtedly a liar.
Debacle, nice one.
The rough and tumble of English grammar. You give another oxymoron and I'll smack you in the mouth mate. You callin my dichotomy false or what?
Reminds me of the Monty Python sketch, French by surgery for beginners.
Its aardvark but it pays well.
I've been tutoring immigrants in English for more than ten years. Try explaining some of the following:
You can sit up while you're sitting down.
Slow up and slow down mean the same thing.
Things can be a little big or pretty ugly. Things cannot be a big little or ugly pretty.
You get in a car but on a bus.
You are in the street, out on the street, or on the block.
Come on up and come up mean the same thing. Come on has a whole different meaning.
Someone who says "I bet" doesn't believe you. Someone who says "you bet" does.
Roberta wrote:You get in a car but on a bus.
Because you can stand on a bus it uses the same preposition as a surface. Since you can't stand inside most cars this preposition would be inappropriate.
Then why do get "on" a flight - u cant stand in there!!
I think Craven's right. Another example: You can get
on the back of a truck, but you only get
in the front (driver's section).
Nah, I'm with Roboita. I never get on a bus. Afraid I might fall off the roof. Allus gets into it instead. And I try to speak that way, too. "It was crowded in the bus this morning" not "It was crowded on the bus."
Too much, the Magic Bus ! ! !
Seven and six pence every day
Just to ride to my baby . . .
Pronounciation
I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble but not you
On hiccough, thorough, laugh and through.
Well done! And now you wish perhaps
To learn of less fearful traps.
Beware of heard - a a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead. It's said like bed not bead -
For goodness sake don' call it deed.
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt).
A moth is not a moth in mother
Nor both in bother, broth in brother.
And here is not a match for there
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear.
And then there's does and rose and lose -
Just look them up - and goose and choose,
And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword
And do and go and thwart and cart -
And yet I've hardly made a start.
Anon
