English started out as German, but soon became eclectic and unabashedly plagiaristic. Every year some 500,000 new words pass by the desks of dictionary makers; 250,000 enter temporary usage; and conservatively about 20,000 new words are added to dictionaries because their usage has become frequent and consistent enough to beg the services of a dictionary. That notwithstanding, English is inordinately confusing because of the confusing habit of using homonyms [words pronounced the same as another but differing in meaning, whether spelled the same way or not—such as,heir and air, pair and pare and pear. This includes both a word that is a homophone—same pronunciation and a homograph which is a word which is exactly the same as another in both sound and spelling but different in meaning—such as, chase “to pursue” and chase “to ornament metal” and wordsspelled the same as each other but of different meaning and often different pronunciation—such as, as bear “to carry; support” and bear, the animal or lead, as in “to conduct” or lead, the metal.And that is to say nothing about many English words that have a large number of meanings, and the irregularity of our “system” of grammar. Many foreigners regard English as the most difficult language to learn in the world, not just because of confusing words but for the fact that it has so many unusual and contradictory rules that it often seems that there are new rules for every sentence or word. For example, there is only one common word in English that has five vowels in a row–queueing. English has word palindromes—spelled the same way forwards and backwards like deified, racecar, repaper, reviver, and rotator. Bookkeeper has three sets of duplicated vowels.
This gives rise to an array of nonsensical, and rather amusing peculiarities. Consider these examples (which I collected from various sources—none of which I can remember now:
-The bandage is wound around the wound.
-Farms produce produce.
-The overfull city dump has to refuse more refuse.
-To maintain beauty, one must polish Polish furniture.
-The sergeant could lead, if he got the lead out.
-The rookie soldier went bonkers and decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
-There is no time like the present to present the present.
-In the fishing cabin, a bass is painted on the top of a bass drum.
-Frightened, the dove dove into the bushes.
-I dislike the reasoning, but I do not object to the object.
-Corrupt insurance is invalid for the invalid.
-There was a royal row among the oarsmen about how to row.
-We are too close to the door to close it.
-A buck does odd things when does are present.
-In the dilapidated tailor shop, a sewer fell into the sewer line.
-In planting season, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
-The wind is too strong to wind in the lines to the sail.
-I saw a tear in my favorite painting and shed a tear.
-The doctor had to subject his subject to a series of tests.
-It is difficult even to intimate this information to my most intimate friend.
-The Medieval soldier found it wise to bow to the man with the bow.
-You can re-read a red book just to say you re-read it.
-Whomever finishes first has won one! Congrats.
-The girl’s beau tied her bow.
-The farmer’s wife decided to combine her combines to bring in the crops.
– He had to write to the right people to keep his family’s right to his property during his rites.
-Next, she hitched her cow to a plough to make a trough.
-The cow is not a problem for you, because you have a ewe.
-Probably the most difficult sound to master is “ough”. Consider all of the sounds for that spelling in “A rough-coated, dough-faced ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough, coughing and hiccoughing thoughtfully.” Or in this: “One can sit on a bough, though, and cough through the night.”