1. The bandage was wound around the
wound.
2. The farm was used to produce produce.
3. The dump
was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4. We must polish the
Polish furniture.
5. He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7. Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was
time to present the present.
8. A bass was painted on the head
of the bass drum.
9. When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10. I did not object to the object.
11. I had to
subject the subject to a series of tests.
12. The insurance was
invalid for the invalid.
13. How can I intimate this to my most
intimate friend?
14. There was a row among the oarsmen about
how to row.
15. They were too close to the door to close it.
16. The buck does funny things when the does are present.
17. A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
18. To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
19. The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
20.
After a number of injections my jaw got number.
21.
Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant
nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins
weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are
candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English
for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can
work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from
Guinea nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write but
fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the
plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose,
2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem
crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of
odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian
eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by
truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? How
can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise
guy are opposites?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a
language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you
fill in a form by filling it out and in which an alarm goes off by going
on. English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the
creativity of the human race (which, of course, isn't a race at all).
That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the
lights are out, they are invisible.
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