The text on this screenshot of the article, in case anyone is interested.
You think English is easy? Check out the following.
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The bandage was wound around the wound.
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The farm was cultivated to produce produce.
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The dump was so full that the workers had to refuse more refuse.
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We must polish the Polish furniture shown at the store.
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He could lead if he would get the lead out.
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The soldier decided to desert his tasty dessert in the desert.
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Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present to his girlfriend.
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A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
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When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
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I did not object to the object which he showed me.
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The insurance was invalid for the invalid in his hospital bed.
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There was a row among the oarsmen about who would row.
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They were too close to the door to close it.
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The buck does funny things when the does (females) are present.
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A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
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To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
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The wind was too strong to wind the sail around the mast.
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Upon seeing the tear in her painting she shed a tear.
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I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
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How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
Heteronyms
These are brilliant. Homonyms or homographs are words of like spelling, but with more than one meaning and sound.
When pronounced differently. they are known as heteronyms.
THE CHAOS
by Dr. Gerard Nolst Trenité
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.
Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
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!!!
One of my favorite examples of crazy English is: “All of the faith that he had had had had no effect on the outcome of his life.”
On the exam, Johnny, while Bobby had had ‘had’, had had ‘had had’. ‘Had had’ had had a better effect on the teacher.
The owner of a fish and chips shop in Blackpool was having a sign made. The sign painter drew a mock up, and showed it to the shop owner, but it was a little cramped. The shop owner asked the sign painter to “leave a little more space between fish and and and and and chips.”
Realising how funny it sounded he said, “wait, no, write that down! I can call my shop that!” The sign painte diligently drew up another draft, but again it was a little cramped. The shop owner, exasperated, said “no, now we need more space between fish and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and chips!”
He paused, and his face lit up, “write that down!” And so te sign painter…
No matter how many times I read this it makes no sense, why so many ands the first time?
A more detailed version of the sentence would be:
We need more space between the word fish & the word and, & the word and & the word chips
3 of the "and"s are the literal actual word “and”, while the other two are referring to the word “and” on the sign.
I’ve always heard English is three languages stacked up and wearing a trench coat.
