Does the word “homonym” sound dirty to you? What about “homophone”? Does it sound like a gayer version of Homer Simpson’s timeless “Sax-a-ma-phone”? Those terms, included numerous times in article’s title, are simply but a taste of the complexity that is the English language.
We can all learn a lot from this man.
While the title of today’s article might sound nothing more then the redundant use of the name for a large, shaggy bovid, truthfully, it’s quite possibly the most confusing valid sentence in the English language. Yes, it’s true. It technically would have been an acceptable response to your English teachers request for a example sentence, while simultaneously earning you many disgusted looks from the more popular kids.
Now that you know it’s a sentence and it’s legit, you probably aren’t very surprised to hear that this isn’t a complete anomaly either, the articles “See also” section bares many similar such confusanyms, such as:
• James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher
• That that is is that that is not is not is that it it is
• Colorless green ideas sleep furiously
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously? WTF? Obviously this revelation has rendered everything you’ve learned in K-8 now in void. Your welcome.
But before I release thee to relearn your native language, let’s take a quick moment to address how crap like this happens.
To begin with, English is a lil' crazy. It can be difficult to see this as a primary speaker, but remember that you’ve likely taken a lifetime to adapt yourself to the cadre of verb tenses, numerous exceptions to pluralize nouns (for example, words that change interior vowel sounds, like “mouse/mice”) and a vast number of irregular verbs, many of which become substantially altered in conjugation. Since none of these issues are in any way funny, we’ll just casually gloss over them.
On a more entertaining note, many linguists conjecture that the complexity of the English language is, for the most part, a premeditated scheme used by the Illuminati and other various secret societies to repress the poorly-educated and immigrants in order to further alienate them and keep them from unduly affecting the electorate.
Nothing is as funny as repression, right?
One of the very few languages that English has any substantial relation to is the Scots language, which, since few readers have likely heard any spoken, is about as intelligible as a drunk and pissed-off Scotsman yelling at you in heavily-accented Scottish English.
And you wonder why people say shit like “irregardless”...
Alternative #1: Revert modern English back to middle, or even Old English (no relation to the forty). Back in ye olde tymes, people were lucky just to be literate, let alone know anything about punctuation, thus English was a lot simpler. The following is a KFC drive-through menu in Old English:
"Ic nam me to gemynde þa gewritu and þa word, þe se arcebiscop Lyfing me fram þam papan brohte of Rome, þæt ic scolde æghwær godes lof upp aræran and unriht alecgan and full frið wyrcean be ðære mihte, þe me god syllan wolde."
Alternative #2: Ok, so maybe words like "æghwær" and "ðære" are a bit much for most of us. Why not try pure phonetics? Consider the following sentence. What it lacks in ascetics, it more then makes up in pronounceablity:
/ðə/ /ˈresɪpi / /fɔ:r/ /ðə/ /ˈtʃɪkɪn/ /ɪz/ /ɪn/ /ðə/ /ˈkɪtʃɪn/
See, easy!
Alternative #3: Want something ever so slightly more established? Try Ebonics. Since it directly derives from modern English there should be some amount of mutual intelligibility already. Does someone think you made a grammatical mistake? Just coin it as a new piece of slang. You’re not retarded, you're just hip. Don’t believe it’s that easy? The next time you see a gansta, ask him what the difference is between a comma and a semi-colon. You’ll quickly discover how much he cares. Maybe even with a cap in that azz.
This is your new language teacher, C-Dogg. You will notice that he likely has some familiarity with Olde English.
One final note: Many years ago, while teaching martial arts in a middle school and regaling the lads with my multi-linguistic command over kicking and punching terms, one of the students mentioned that he too spoke another language. When I inquired further, the imp informed me that he spoke “human”. Had I the patience then that I do now, rather then threatening this affable scamp with the back of my hand, I could have explored this apparently universal language further and perhaps even discovered a solution for many of societies woes. I guess I'll never know now...
I guess I'll leave saving the children to famous people...
