Confusion?

I found this text on Web English Teacher and found it quite amusing. Makes me understand why those of us who are not native speakers get confused by the English language.

"There's no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither
apple nor pine in pineapple.

English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in
France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet,
are meat.

We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes,
we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a
guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing,
grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is
teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, two geese.
So one moose, two meese? One index, two indices?

Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one
amend, that you comb through the annals of history but not a single
annal? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but
one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a
vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? If you
wrote a letter, perhaps you bote your tongue?

Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed
to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people
recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo
by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? Park on driveways
and drive on parkways?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a
wise man and a wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee
be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike? How can
the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell another?

Have you noticed that we talk about certain things only when
they are absent? Have you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful
gown? Met a sung hero or experienced requited love?

Have you ever run into someone who was discombobulated,
gruntled, ruly or peccable? And where are all those people who ARE
spring chickens or who would ACTUALLY hurt a fly?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which
your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form
by filling out and in which an alarm clock goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects
the creativity of the human race (which, of course, isn't a race at
all).

That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when
the lights are out, they are invisible. And why, when I wind up my
watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it!"

How is your pronunciation? English is tough stuff

Many of us struggle with the correct pronunciatin of the English language. I know for sure that I do sometimes! Many words are spelled almost identically, but pronunced very differently. Other words are vice versa. The poem below is a challenge - are you ready? It demonstrates the irregularities and pronunciaton problems we stumble upon while reading and speaking English. If you can read this without hesitation and without stumbling, well, then your oral English skills are just fine!

The Chaos

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I!  Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does.  Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

Gerald Nolst Trenite 1929

Discovered on Tversover

Zemanta - a blogging tool

Image by Tom Raftery via FlickrAll right, here is another gadget for you to try out. The thing is, I've downloaded Zemanta, a tool that suggests images and links based on what you are writing about, and then you can add them directly to your blog posts. It updates itself in every 300 characters you write. It works with Firefox and Blogger, Typepad and Wordpress. The picture and links included here were suggested by Zemanta. It also suggests tags for your posts. The suggestions are taken from main sites like Flickr, Wikipedia, other search engines and blog posts by other Zemanta users. All the images suggested are free to use, so you won't break any laws using them. Unfortunately Zemanta works best in English, which makes it less useful for blog posts in Norwegian. Anyway, I guess I am still able to make up my blogposts without this, too, but as you might know, I'm always on the lookout for new toys.

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Great Teachers' Society at work

Teaching vs. learning

Every year teachers feel that they run out of time as March turns into April and April turns into May. There are so many topics on the syllabus that should have been covered, and you do not have a clue how to get through it all before the exam. This year is no exception; already April has come to an end, and there are still things we have not managed to teach the students. Maybe this is part of the problem - we feel obliged to teach the students everything. We need to make sure we have read enough central texts and given lectures on almost everything. My question is, are we only good teachers if we give our students lectures on each and every single part of the syllabus? Do we need to reassure ourselves that all the pupils in our groups know all the answers to all the questions that might be given an the exam? Would it be possible for us to give the students more responsibility? Are there parts of the syllabus that they can teach themselves?

Visuwords

Have you ever wanted a more visual approach when you're looking for the meaning of a word? Well, here it is! Visuwords is an online visual, graphic dictionary that lets you look up words and find how they are associated with other words. It produces diagrams reminiscent of a neural net. The different colours represents verbs, nouns, adjectives etc. and you only have to add a word to get started. Give it a try - you might find this a useful tool. Visuwords has also been seen at Diginalet.

Students 2.0

Did you know that there is a blog out there written by students about learning, schooling, teaching, education and much more? It is written because a handful of young people want to give a voice to the future - their own. And yours. But let them introduce themselves:

For decades, students have been stuck in classrooms, behind desks, being told how and what to learn. For a time, when students were expected to become widgets for the vast machine of industry, this model of education was highly effective. However, we have now entered a new age: an age where thinking is more important than knowing, where thoughts out-do the facts. Borders are melting away; project teams collaborate across the globe and intelligence is being continually redefined. The world’s information is at our fingertips and anybody can publish their thoughts for virtually no cost.
(...)
This blog is an attempt to give students a voice in where the future of education is headed. But do not let the idea of listening to students turn you away: for everyone here is also a teacher. We are a team from across the globe, and this is our time.

I highly recommend Students 2.0 to anyone who is interested in learning, education and the future - and that should mean you, too.