Just For Fun
{Life is too important to take seriously}
Ever wonder why the English language was so hard to master?
If you've learned to speak fluent English, you must be a genius! Persue at your leisure, English lovers.
Reasons why the English language is so hard to learn:
1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse the refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he could get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the orsmen about how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to close it
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into the sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) After a number of injections, my jaw got number.
19) After seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
20) I had to subjct the subject to a series of tests.
21) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
There is 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.
Quicksand works slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor a pig. 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 to booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese.
So one moose, 2 meese? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? Is it an odd or an end?
If teachers taught, why don't preachers prought? If a vegetarian eats vegatables, what doesa humanitarian eat? In what language does 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?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? 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 can fill in a form by filling it out, and in which an alarm goes off by going on.
English was invented by humans, not by computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which of course, is not a race at all. That's why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.
Oh yes - Why doesn't "Buick" rhyme with "quick"?
Now add a little Texas slang to all this and it really gets confusing.
A little bit of History that wasn't taught at Sunset.
Here are some facts about the 1500s:
Most people got married in June because they took their bath in May, and still smelled pretty good by June. However they were starting to smell, so the Brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor.
Hense the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.
Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water so so dirty you could actually lose someone in it.
Hense, the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water"
Houses had thatched roofs -- thick straw -- piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof.
Hense the saying "It's raining cats and dogs."
There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hense, a bed with big post and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection.
That's how the canopy beds came into existence.
The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other that dirt.
Hense the saying "dirt poor."
The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery when wet, so they spread thresh(straw) on the floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh, but when the door was opened it would start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entranceway.
Hense the saying a "thresh hold."
Getting quite a history lesson, aren't you?
In those days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving the leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then started over the next day. Sometimes the stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while.
Hense the rhyme, "Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in
the pot nine days old".
Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special.
When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show it off.
It was a sign of wealth that a man could
" bring home the bacon".
They would cut off a little to share with guests and would sit around and
"Chew the fat".
Those with money had plates made with pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.
Bread was divided according to status. Workers would get the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or "upper crust".
Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial.
They would lay them out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait to see if they would wake up.
Hense the custom of holding a "wake".
England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up the coffins and take the bones to a "bone-house" and reuse the grave. When reopening the coffins, one out of twenty five coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night
(the "graveyard shift") to listen for the bell; thus someone could be
" saved by the bell" or was a "dead ringer".
Now, whoever said History was boring?
What's that? You liked History but not Geography?
Click on the word Geography above and see something fun.
TOP TEN RULES OF CHOCOLATE:
10. If you've got melted chocolate all over your hands, you're eating it too slowly.
9. Chocolate covered raisins, cherries, orange slices and strawberries all count as fruit, so eat as many as you want.
8. The problem: How to get 2 pounds of chocolate home from the store in a hot car. The solution: Eat it in the parking lot.
7. Diet tip: Eat a chocolate bar before each meal. It'll take the edge off your appetite and you'll eat less.
6. If calories are an issue, store your chocolate on top of the fridge. Calories are afraid of heights, and they will jump out of the chocolate to protect themselves.
5. If I eat equal amounts of dark chocolate and white chocolate, is that a balanced diet? Don't they actually counteract each other?
4. Money talks. Chocolate sings.
3. Chocolate has many preservatives. Preservatives make you look younger.
2. Why is there no such organizaiton as Chocoholics Anonymous? A. Because no one wants to quit.
1. Put "eat chocolate" at the top of your list of things to do today. That way, at least you'll get one thing done.
Signs that you know you are not young and hip:
You think Paris Hilton is a hotel in France.
Every concert you've been to in the last five years was a "fearewell tour".
You don't like loud noises and you can't hear quiet ones.
You use the term "whippersnapper" in actual conversation.
You find new trends in clothes to be both irritating and frightening.
People are no longer impressed that you have the entire Monkees library on 8-track, and then ask, "What is an 8-track.
Fun Facts About Names
Jake the Jailbird - the name of the guy in jail on the Monopoly board.
Whirly-Girls - the name of the International Association of Women Helicopter Pilots
Stewardesses - the longest word that is typed with only the left hand
No word in the English language rhymes with orange, silver, purple, or month.
For life after graduation:
Laws of Parenting:
The later you stay up, the earlier your child will wake up the next morning.
For a child to become clean, something else must become dirty.
Toys multiply to fill any space available.
The longer it takes you to make a meal, the less your child will like it.
Yours is always the only child who doesn't behave.
If the shoe fits....it's expensive.
If the show fits and looks good....they won't wear it.
Backing the car out of the driveway causes your child to have to go to the bathroom.
Raising teenagers is like nailing Jell-O to a tree.
When your children have done something and you can remain calm, you don't have all the facts.
A child is most likely to need their doctor on the weekend or after the office is closed.
{Let it out, life is too important to not include a good laugh}
