Words that make English Such a Difficult Language

[Jack Flash]

I didn't want to drift the Most Misspelled Word Thread with this so I will start a new one.

Ever noticed how difficult it must be to learn English as a foreign language, especially for an adult? Look at word pairs that are spelled the same but have different meanings and possibly different pronunciations.

Simple example of such a pair:
Sow ... as in "the boar's girl friend"
Sow ... as in "as ye sow, so shall ye reap"

Heck, you could even add the words "so" and "sew" to the above, if you wanted to expand the discussion to words that sound the same but have different spellings / meanings.

Can anyone suggest similar word pairs? (Or should I say "pears"?)

 

[redlevel]

Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana.

You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be lead.

 

[ragingbulldaily]

They're looking for their cat that was in the garage there.

 

[steamloco76]

I was taught to read a little red book about a boy in the lead who'd led a horse with a saddle of lead past a sign he didn't feel the need to read. Had he stopped to wait and read the sign, he would know his horse with a load of lead, of which he was in the lead was over weight. Instead now he and the horse laden with lead, which he led with out a wait and were overweight, are now dead. For the bridge they tried to cross over a chasm deep an narrow had a weight limit of just four men.

 

[johngalt]

You make the bed, but do the dishes

 

[fordson]

I can see the sea....... and from here, can hear the surf......I can watch the sky and the leaves on the trees. But my watch said it's time for me to leave.......
There's more, but I won't bore you...... (by making you look into the hole in my barrel)
Yep, English is a tough language......

 

[D Brown]

Lo and behold. How many times have you seen this misspelled as "Low and behold"?

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

Are Pat, Jean, & Shawn men or women?

And you better hope the Bore (that Sow's boyfriend in the OP) doesn't get bored and bore you.

Since I'm in New Jersey today, yous can use the car!

Ivan

 

[REM 3200]

ODE TO A COMPUTER SPELL CHECKER

Eye halve a spelling checker,
it came with my pea sea.
It plainly marques four my revue
miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word
and weight four it to say,
weather eye am wrong oar write
it shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid
it nose bee fore two long
and eye can put the error rite,
it's rare lea ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it,
eye am shore your pleased two no
it's letter perfect awl the weigh
my checker tolled me sew.

 

[SailDesign]

The Czech checked his cheque-book.

If the US spells "cheque" as "check" (the thing you write to give money away) why don't they use "exchecker" for the financial institution?

They already spell the game "Checkers" instead of the British "Chequers"

Two nations, divided by a common language.

 

[Absalom]

Learning English, for me the worst were the bunches of letters that produced vowels completely unrelated to some of the letters, and different ones from word to word:

Though (hello, g, why don't I pronounce you?)

Through (ok, still no g, but the ou sounds different!)

Plough (great, another different sound)

Tough (an f? Seriously? Where the h*** did that come from? And the ou sounds different yet again? And a short rather than long sound?)

And so on.

 

[SailDesign]

Learning English, for me the worst were the bunches of letters that produced vowels completely unrelated to some of the letters, and different ones from word to word:

Though (hello, g, why don't I pronounce you?)

Through (ok, still no g, but the ou sounds different!)

Plough (great, another different sound)

Tough (an f? Seriously? Where the h*** did that come from? And the ou sounds different yet again? And a short rather than long sound?)

And so on.

Dr. Seuss wrote a book many years ago called "The Tough Coughs as he Ploughs the Dough"

Of course, no-one these days spells "Plough" correctly anyway, having degenerated to "plow". Sad - hugely!

 

[federali]

There were so many witches at the party that I couldn't tell which witch was which.

 

[federali]

Talking Heads

One of the greatest misused words, especially with TV newspeople, is "inject." You don't "inject" your opinion or presence into a situation. The correct word is "interject."

Most people don't know the difference between "further" and "farther." Also, "hung" is the past tense of hanging something such as a picture or jacket. The word also has some occasional currency when describing certain specific anatomical features. However, if you're describing an execution, the correct word is "hanged." The co-conspirators in the Lincoln assassination were hanged. They were not hung.

 

[Rule3]

I do not think the rules allow us to discuss:
homonyms, homophones, homographs,or heteronyms

So their!

 

[SailDesign]

There were so many witches at the party that I couldn't tell which witch was which.

I wonder whether the wether will weather the weather or whether the wether will not.

Danged spell-chequer doesn't recognise "wether" anyway. Old term for a female sheep. And yes, "recognise" has no "z" in the rest of the world.

 

[LedFowl]

Sit awhile. I'll be back in a while.

 

[ExcitableBoy]

English isn't so bad if you paid attention in class.

I took French in HS for one day. How in the world do you get the pronunciation "twa" from "trois"? I figured it would all just go downhill from there.

 

[kthom]

I wonder whether the wether will weather the weather or whether the wether will not.

Danged spell-chequer doesn't recognise "wether" anyway. Old term for a female sheep. And yes, "recognise" has no "z" in the rest of the world.

Just to clarify for the sake of accuracy, a "wether" lamb or sheep is a castrated male animal. A female sheep is an ewe.

 

[rog8732]

When a soldier has enough mettle in battle to be awarded a medal, at least it should be metal. ( Instead of plastic.)

Most of the 26 letters of the alphabet; A to Z, can begin the spelling of a 3 letter word, by adding one or more of 4 of the 5 main vowels.
A 3 letter word in English is a small word comparatively, and the "made" words are also small, either nouns, pronouns, or verbs.