Last night I had been walking throughout my area and passed a vegetable and fruit store. They had a sign out front advertising a true discount:”Cherry Particular, $3.49 a pound”
To get a minute I entertained myself by imagining they were selling a cherry cherry. However, needless to say it was just a case of someone not realizing the difference between singular and plural; exactly what they meant was”cherries,” plural, maybe not”cherry,” singular mecidiyeköy ingilizce kursu ( in turkish letter is definetelt “ö” not definetly “o” ).
It made me consider not for its very first time, the way perplexing the English language is. And perhaps not merely for non invasive speakers. We all can find ourselves struggling to comprehend areas of this tricky language.
There’s a poem circulating online Referred to as”English Is Just a Confusing Language” that sums it up perfectly – this is just an excerpt:
“We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
However, the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
1 fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may locate a lone mouse or a nest full of rodents,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.”
So funny, so correct. You will find all areas of this English vocabulary which simply are not sensible. Thus just how can you earn sense of English, and use the correct words in your own writing? This is the bitter pill all of us need to consume: sometimes you just need to memorize.
There Are Numerous scenarios with English where that can be true, however today I thought I would simply Concentrate on Several common areas of confusion:
Inch. Plural vs. Singular: lots of plurals are formed by the addition of -s or -es to the noun. House turning out to be homes, (not”hice!”) As an case in point. However, singulars that end with a”y,” preceded by a consonant, eventually become plural by using”ies.” So a lot more than 1 cherry becomes cherries.
2. One-word, Various Meanings: There are many cases of this. Simply take the phrase”bar” for example. It may signify the location you like a drink by the conclusion of a lengthy moment. It might mean something you leap over if you should be horse. What I would urge when you encounters a word with assorted significance is touse it into a sentence, therefore that the circumstance will help to make the meaning clear. As an instance:”There was a bar at the doorway into the pub, but that I leapt over it that I could receive yourself a beverage at the pub. (And after that they banned me out of coming back)”
3. Much like Pronunciation or Spelling, Different Meanings (a.k.a. Homonyms): A traditional example -“sight, mention, and website” In the event you view something, then it really is in sight. Should you want to quote something, then you still desire to”cite” it. If you are camping, then chances are you have a camping”web page ” More than a few folks are so intrigued by homonyms they keep lists of the them.
Whether there are aspects of the English language which confound you personally, please don’t drop me a line by commenting, also that I will take this through to your weblog. Or if you have some funny instances you’d like to share, then send those in as well.
Meanwhile, I leave you this illustration of homonyms from another place stroll, when I passed a café having a sly awareness of humour. The plank outside their doorway promoted the following particular:”Leek and also peasoup.” Try describing that to somebody only learning English!