CHHATRA PAL VERMA
PREFACE
Many cultures find that English might possibly be one of the most difficult languages to learn. Not in fact, for its words, but for the fact that it has so many unusual and contradictory rules. Just looking over an English study book will tell you that so many odd ifs and buts apply to so many words that it is enough to drive one crazy. I am not joking, once even playwright George Bernard Shaw was so upset about the illogical spelling of English words that he left money in his will to pay for the creation of a new alphabet (which came out in the early 1960s, but which never caught on).
I too went crazy while searching such oddities and complexities of English language which forced me to collect them for my own entertainment. And what a wonderful tool INTERNET proved to be, because without which it would have never been possible for me to come to an idea to collect these wonderful and thrilling oddities in the form of a book. Originally this book is having two major parts i.e. Engliah-Vinglish and Math-Bath, but due to certain technical glitches at the end of Matrubharti the later part i.e. Math-Bath is separated and only English-Vinglish is presented here. However, if the eager readers wish to have both the parts i.e. book as a whole it is advised to have this complete book from BLUEROSE PUBLICATION NEW DELHI OR FROM
AMAZON, FLIPKART.
I am confident that this bouquet of various unique oddities and strange grammatical and funny usages of English language, English Riddles, will not only entertain the readers but also force them to go crazy to appreciate. For sure, my query at the end will be - “Isn’t it?” So, go ahead to be crazy and train your brain to release brain pain.
Chhatra Pal Verma
*****
ENGLISH VINGLISH
(1)
Confusing ENGLISH Sentences That Actually Make Sense. Let’s face it: Sometimes the English language can be downright bizarre. The plural of ox is oxen while the plural of box is boxes, ‘rough’ rhymes with ‘gruff’ even though the two words only have two letters in common, and there are actually more than nine hundred exceptions to the infamous “I” before e except after the “c” rule. If you’re still not convinced that the English language is full of oddities and conundrums, take a look at these wacky sentences that are actually grammatically correct.
1. If it is in or it is on, it is as it is, be it in or be it on.
This is a meaningful English sentence of twenty words,
each word having only two letters.
2. I is a pronoun.
This is also a grammatically, absolutely correct sentence
but the beauty of it is that a transit verb ‘IS’, is used for I.
Isn't it strange?
3. No sentence ends with because, because, because is a
conjunction.
Is it an ambiguous sentence? No. It is perfectly a meaningful
and grammatically correct English sentence having the word ‘because’ thrice continuously.
4. Remove commas between Ram and and and and and Laxman.
Yes! you read it correctly. It is having ‘and’ five times consecutively
and is still a meaningful and grammatically correct English sentence.
But to understand this you shall have to check a sentence
which is grammatically incorrect.
See- ‘Ram, and, Laxman are brothers,’
and to make it correct one is to be instructed as
“Remove commas between Ram and and, and
and and Laxman.”
5. I said that, that, that that, that man said is true.
Again, this is a meaningful and grammatically correct
English sentence having the word ‘THAT’ five times
continuously.
6. All the faith he had had had had no effect on the
outcome of his life.
Well, talk about lexical ambiguity. But as strange as
this sentence might sound, it is actually grammatically
correct. The sentence relies on a double use of the past
perfect. The two instances of “had had” play different grammatical roles in the sentences—the first is a
modifier while the second is the main verb of the
sentence.
7. One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas.
How he got into my pajamas I’ll never know.
This famous Groucho Marx joke takes advantage of the
fact that the same sentence can often be interpreted in
more than one way.
The first sentence can be read in two distinct ways: A).
The man shot an elephant while he was wearing his
pajamas or B) The man shot an elephant that was
wearing his pajamas.
It’s unclear who is wearing the pajamas—the man or
the elephant.
Most people interpret the sentence the first way and are
subsequently startled to read the second part of the joke.
8. The complex houses married and single soldiers and
their families.
This is what we call a garden path sentence. Though grammatically correct, the reader’s initial interpretation
of the sentence may be nonsensical. In other words, the sentence has taken the reader down a dead-end.
Here, “complex” may be interpreted as an adjective and “houses” may be interpreted as a noun. Readers are
immediately confused upon reading that the complex
houses “married,” interpreting “married” as the verb.
How can houses get married? In actuality, “complex” is
the noun, “houses” is the verb, and “married” is the
adjective. The sentence is trying to express the following:
Single soldiers, as well as married soldiers and their
families, reside in the complex.
9. The man, the professor the student has studies Rome.
This awkward but grammatically correct sentence is a
product of what is known as centre embedding. In
English, we can typically put one clause inside of another
without any problem. We can take “the man studies
Rome” and add a bunch of additional information between
the noun and the verb.
However, the more information that is added, the harder it is
to interpret the sentence. In this particular case, the sentence conveys the following:
The student has the professor who knows the man who
studies ancient Rome. Each noun corresponds to a verb
(the man studies, the student has). But because of the sentence’s syntax, this is hard to decipher. Remember:
just because a sentence is grammatically correct doesn’t
mean it is acceptable stylistically.
10. Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo.
No, your eyes are not playing Tricks on you. You read that sentence right—it reads “buffalo” eight times. You see,
“buffalo” is a noun that refers to the large, shaggy-maned
North American bison, a city in upstate New York, and a
verb that means, “to intimidate.”
First devised by professor William J. Rapaport in 1972,
this notorious sentence plays on reduced relative
clauses, different part-of-speech readings of the same
word, and centre embedding.
It’s also a pretty prime example of how homonyms
(words that share spelling and pronunciation but have
different meanings) can really confuse things.
While it might be hard to parse, the sentence is coherent.
If you stare at it long enough the true meaning may even miraculously come to you: “Bison from Buffalo, New York,
who are intimidated by other bison in their community,
also happen to intimidate other bison in their community.”
For further clarification you might also want to check out
English indie rock band Alt-J’s song “Buffalo,” which was famously inspired by this conundrum of a sentence and
used in the soundtrack of the Oscar-nominated Silver
Linings Playbook.
11. I never said she stole my money.
This fun sentence takes on seven different meanings
depending on which word is emphasized: [I] never said
she stole my money.
- Someone else said it. I [never] said she stole my money.
- I didn’t say it. I never [said] she stole my money. - I only
implied it.
I never said [she] stole my money. - I said someone did,
not necessarily her. I never said she [stole] my money.
I considered it borrowed.
I never said she stole[my] money. - Only that she stole
money, not necessarily my own. I never said she stole
my [money].
She stole something of mine, not my money. While this
Trick works for plenty of other sentences as well, this
one’s short and easy to understand.
12. Another sentence “God is nowhere” can be used
to reverse it’s meaning by just making a gap between
now and here. See how - “God is now here.”
13. A woman without her man is nothing.
This has made the rounds on the internet for a while
now, but it’s still a fascinating look at how punctuation
can completely change the meaning of a sentence.
As the story goes, a professor told his class to correctly punctuate the sentence. The males in the classroom
wrote, “A woman, without her man, is nothing.”
The women in the class wrote, “A woman: without her,
man is nothing.” With just a simple change in
punctuation, the entire meaning of the sentence was
changed in an instant.
14. The horse raced past the barn fell.
You don’t really appreciate little words like “who,”
“which,” or “that” until you come across a sentence
like this one. The headache you’re experiencing trying
to figure this out is due to the presence of a reductive
relative clause, which can be seen in sentences like,
“The song heard on the radio was beautiful,” instead of,
“The song that was heard on the radio was beautiful.”
All we have to do to make this a little simpler is change
the first part of the sentence:
“The horse that was raced past the barn fell.”
15. A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman
strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling
into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed.
The letter combination “-ough” has nine possible
pronunciations in English (depending on regional dialect),
and this delightful sentence contains them all: “uff,” “oh,”
“auh,” “ow,” “uh,” “oo,” “off,” and “uhp.”
How’s that for a tongue-twister?
16. (i) Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow. (29 letters)
(ii) Quick zephyrs blow, vexing daft Jim. (29 letters)
These two sentences contain every single letter of the
English alphabet, while using the smallest number of
letters to do so. Go ahead and check; they’re all there.
●How quickly daft jumping zebras vex. (30 letters)
●Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz. (31 letters)
●The five boxing wizards jump quickly. (31 letters)
●Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs. (32 letters)
●The quick brown fox jumped over a lazy dog. (33 letters)
Note - These all are called Pangram. There are other but
lengthier sentences having all the alphabets of English
language.
17. This exceeding trifling witling, considering
ranting criticizing concerning adopting fitting
wording being exhibiting transcending learning,
was displaying, notwithstanding ridiculing,
surpassing boasting swelling reasoning,
respecting correcting erring writing, and touching
detecting deceiving arguing during debating.
Ending a word with “ing” can make it a noun, verb, or
adjective, depending on how you use it. This sentence,
found in a 19th century grammar book, explores just
how far we can take the versatile “ing” if we put our
minds to it. If you take the time to really dissect this
sentence, it’s not as crazy as it initially appears:
“This very superficial grammarist, supposing empty
criticism about the adoption of proper phraseology to
be a show of extraordinary erudition, was displaying,
in spite of ridicule, a very boastful turgid argument
concerning the correction of false syntax, and about
the detection of false logic in debate.”
Well, I guess it’s just slightly less confusing.
18. I do not know where family doctors acquired
illegibly perplexing handwriting; nevertheless,
extraordinary pharmaceutical intellectuality, counter- balancing indecipherability, transcendentalizes inter- communications incomprehensibleness.
Author and recreational linguist Dmitri Borgmann came up
with this sentence, in which each word is exactly one letter
longer than the one before it.
The sentence contains twenty words, and although it’s a
little confusing to read, if you take the time to analyse it,
you’ll notice that it actually makes complete sense.
19. “I see,” said the blind man as he picked up the
hammer and saw.
This sentence plays off the fact that ‘saw’ is both a noun
and the past tense of the verb ‘to see.’ It could mean
that the hammer allowed the blind man to regain his
eyesight, or that he uttered the phrase while picking up
two tools.
20. Read rhymes with lead, and read rhymes with
lead, but read and lead don’t rhyme, and neither do
read and lead.
Isn’t it confusing when one word has two different pronunciations?
For this (completely true) sentence to make sense, try
reading it like this: “Reed rhymes with leed, and red
rhymes with led, but reed and led don’t rhyme, and
neither do red and leed.”
21. The old man the boats.
It sounds like something a very drunk sailor might say,
but this sentence actually isn’t missing a verb. In this
case, the word ‘man’ is a verb meaning to take one’s
place for service, and ‘old’ is used to mean a collective
group of old people.
22. You have just begun reading the sentence you
have just finished reading.
This collection of words is a simple one, but its sole
purpose is to take you on a chronological journey of
words while making you uncomfortably self-aware.
I feel like this belongs somewhere in The Matrix.
23. Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana.
Is there a new breed of insect called a Time Fly that
enjoys arrows?
Or does fruit have the ability to soar as bananas do?
24. When I tell you to pick up the left rock, it will be the
right one, and then only the right rock will be left.
If you imagine a scenario in which you have a rock to
either side of you, this sentence makes perfect sense.
The first instance of ‘left’ and the second instance of
‘right’ indicate the location of the rocks.
The first instance of ‘right’ means ‘correct,’ and the
second instance of ‘left’ is talking about the rock that
remains.
25. Will Will Smith smith? / Will Smith will smith.
As it turns out, the famous actor and rapper’s name is
made up of two verbs. The first possible combination
asks if the Fresh Prince is going to take up forging
armour as a hobby, while the second one affirms it.
26. I chopped a tree down, and then I chopped it up.
Ah, the magic of phrasal verbs. To a non-native English
speaker, “to chop down” and “to chop up” seem like
they would be direct opposites (and might inspire some interesting mental images).
Those who really know the language are aware that
chopping something down means to hack at it until it
falls, while chopping it up means to cut it into smaller
pieces.
27. Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.
Noam Chomsky came up with this grammatically correct,
but nonsensical sentence in order to prove that syntax
and semantics are two very distinct things. You’d probably
never hear these words spoken in this order in actual conversation, but all of the words are used correctly.
28. Nothing is right on the left and nothing is left on
the right.
Is there any need to explain this sentence?
29. She told him that she loved him.
The premise is that you can add “only” anywhere and
it’s still grammatically correct.
Only she told him that she loved him. She’s the only
person who said that she loved him.
She only told him that she loved him. She said only
that. She said nothing else.
She told only him that she loved him. She said that
she loved him, and no one else.
She told him only that she loved him. She said only
that she loved him, and nothing more.
She told him that only she loved him. She says she's
the only one to love him, and no one else.
30. Gerald had had had had while Arthur had had
had had had had had the teacher’s approval.
Seems impossible, but once you know the Trick it’s
simple:
Gerald had had ‘had had’, while Arthur had had ‘had’.
‘Had had’ had had the teacher’s approval.’
31. A father goes up to his son’s bedroom, a book
under his arm, ready to read him to sleep. The boy
notices the book and says: ‘Daddy, what did you bring
that book that I don’t want to be read out of?’
This is a perfectly good sentence that ends with no
fewer than five prepositions:
Conclusion: English is weird. But in spite of its oddities,
it is also a strangely beautiful language. You can do all
sorts of crazy things with it without breaking any rules.
The bounds of proper English are virtually endless—
test them in your writing today. This is why English is
the coolest and craziest language at the same time.
Furthermore:
How Confusing the English Language Can be?
Playwright George Bernard Shaw was so upset about
the illogical spelling of English words that he left money
in his will to pay for the creation of a new alphabet
(which came out in the early 1960s, but which never
caught on).
We’ll begin with: - a box, and the plural is boxes;
but the plural of ox became oxen not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese, yet
the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice;
yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men, Why
shouldn’t the plural of pan be called pen? If I spoke
of my foot and showed you my feet, and I gave you
a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn’t the plural of booth be called beeth?
Then one may be that, and three would be those, yet
hat in the plural would never be hose, and the plural
of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren, but
though we say mother, we never say methren.
Why don’t grocers groce, why don’t hammers ham,
and why don’t
dumpsters dumpst? Why one index, two indices?
If you have more than one ibex, why don’t you have
ibices?
If you throw out some odds and ends, but keep one
item, is it an odd or an end? Which one is right to have
left?
If teachers have taught, why haven’t preachers praught?
English is a world where a woodcarver's magazine
editor might add ads for adzes, and a chemist might use
a vile vial.
People can sit on a bough, though, and cough through
the night as they re-read a red book to say they re-read
it; and whoever finishes first has won one!
Why had the cops sought the sot? The photographers
knot all fought for the shot—and not just for naught.
Does the fuzz think there was proof of blood on a wood
floor? And what was that word that occurred by the
bird turd?
At the height of their leisure, neither had the sleight
to seize the feisty weird sovereign poltergeist, so they
had to forfeit the foreign heifer’s counterfeit protein.
[With apologies to “i before e” ...] English was invented
by people, not by computers, and it reflects the creativity
of the human race—which of course is not a race at all.
That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but
when the lights are out, they are invisible.
But please—could someone explain why “Buick” doesn’t
rhyme with “quick”
