Dutch football fans in Switzerland for Euro 2008 have been seen wandering on to railway lines. They were following railway workers whose standard orange reflective vests were mistaken for Holland shirts. For safety reasons the Swiss railwaymen changed to yellow vests.
David Beckham has stripped off for another steamy Emporio Armani ad campaign. The designers unveiled a new billboard in San Francisco in front of thousands of screaming fans. The giant poster shows David, 33, at the beach in a pair of super-tight pants. And he sports a sizeable bulge, just like the last ad which saw him reclining on a bed in white undies. The question remains... doctored or not doctored?
You think English is easy???
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) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row .
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
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? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. 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, 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.
PS. - Why doesn't 'Buick' rhyme with 'quick'
You lovers of the English language might enjoy this.
There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is 'UP'
It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP ? At a meeting, why does a topic come UP ? Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report ?
We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver, we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car . At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special.
And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP . We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.
We seem to be pretty mixedUP about UP! To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions. If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP , you may wind UP with a hundred or more. When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP .
When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP .
When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry UP .
One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP , for now my time is UP, so........... it is time to shut UP!
That's right... the tea bag is 100 years old this week. Can you believe it? Yet the typically English tea bag was actually invented by an American. New York merchant Thomas Sullivan confused his customers in 1908 by sending out samples of tea leaves in small silk purses. Unsure what to do with the strange little bags, the Americans dunked them in a cup of hot water... and the tea bag was born. Amid complaints that the silk mesh was too fine, Sullivan later developed sachets made from gauze. A major breakthrough came in 1930 when William Hermanson of Boston patented the heat-sealed paper fibre tea bag. For years they were viewed with suspicion in Britain, it was not until 1953 that they caught on over here. Here are some facts about the cuppa...- The average tea bag contains 3.125 grams of tea
- There are only 2.5 grams of tea in a continental tea bag
- 98% of people take their tea with milk, but only 30% take sugar
- Tea is a natural source of fluoride which helps protect against tooth decay and gum disease
- A cup of tea contains about half as much caffeine as a cup of coffee
- Tea has potential health benefits in cardiovascular disease and cancer prevention
- There are 2,000 perforations in the average tea bag
- A tea bag used once and refrigerated helps reduce puffiness if placed on the eyes
- Almost every conceivable shape of tea bag has been patented, including cylindrical
- To make a proper cup of tea, pour boiling water on to the tea bag and put milk in last
Come on then, get your brains working, what's going on here then? Invent a caption for this image and see what fantastic prize you won't receive! It's just for the fun of it, okay?
It has taken me almost 30 years to get my hands on the CD version of the Motors debut album '1', as it has taken all this time for it to be actually released in this format... and it is long overdue! Originally unleashed in 1977, this superb album contains a fine collection of high energy pulsating rock and roll, and was a big hit in those days of punk and new wave bands. Dancing The Night Away is the stand out track, a relentless and powerful slice of rock, six minutes of pure joy. The Motors' second album Approved by the Motors is good too, but different as it is more commercial than '1', and contains the more familiar hits Airport and Forget About You, which are played even today on some radio stations. I'm happy to share the amazing Dancing The Night Away, one of my all time favourite tracks. Enjoy it!The Motors - Dancing The Night Away
So which are you then?
