ENGLISH, 'A CRAZY AND FUN LANGUAGE'
Words, like nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within.
-Alfred, Lord Tennyson, poet (1809-1892)
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'There is no rhyme or reason why English words are pronounced as they are, one must learn how to pronounce every word...' - Rey Aman 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 it's 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, that you comb through annals of history but not a single annal? 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 ? If you wrote a letter, perhaps you bote your tongue? 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 ? Park on driveways and drive on parkways?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike? How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell another? Have you noticed that we talk about certain things only when they are absent? Have you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful gown? Met a sung hero or experienced requited love? Have you ever run into someone who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable? And where are all those people who ARE spring chickens or who would ACTUALLY hurt a fly? 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. And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it. Please help - we have tried to find the copyright holder for this resource, to no avail. - A kind contribution to the Agreg Page by Dr Reinhold Aman, author of the outrageous MALEDICTA site, and however a cat lover ! "Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands and goes to work". (Carl Sandburg). Maledicta - or the art of properly cursing. According to Dr. Reinhold Aman all volumes of his work "Maledicta" are at the Bibliothèque Nationale and at the Sorbonne library in Paris, kept hidden in l'enfer ("partie fermée d'une bibliothèque où l'on tient les livres licencieux, interdits au public"). Maledicta is however one of the rare sites you might still want to visit if you can't find your name at 3615 Edutel Plus when the agreg results are out...! Improving English Spelling - Mark Twain's plan. Modernization «English ? a jumble of contradictions. Letters may suggest the wrong sound, like O in woman, U in busy, GH in cough; letters can be silent, like B in doubt or S in island. Consonants vary from single to double, like F in afraid but FF in affray, or T in omit but TT in omitted. Endings vary unpredictably : compare beggAR, teachER, actOR...» syzygy - the longest word in the English language the letters of which, used in any combination, do not form a single other word... Funny and humorous materials for teachers and their classes. Structures de phrases discutables et autres grammaticaux péchés commis par les auteurs de nos manuels. Sur le site savoyard et donc savoureux, de notre collègue Gerard Smith. English Onomatopeias: words that are used to describe sounds. PNEUMONOULTRAMICROSCOPICSILICOVOLCANOCONIOSIS (45 letters; a lung disease caused by breathing in certain particles) is the longest word in any English-language dictionary. (also spelled ...-KONIOSIS). "I , Rearrangement Servant" aka "Internet Anagram Server" can anagrammatize your name, your friends' names, even your pet's name... Ainsi: Page d'anglais = A glad ape sign... Mille faux amis en langue française par Marc Van Campenhoudt - "en priorité pour les étudiants francophones en traduction et interprétation." IN MY English-as-a-second-language class, I was explaining the difference between a watch and a clock. I told the students that when it was a large timepiece on a wall and not attached to your body, it was called a clock. When it was worn on your body, it was called a watch. A few days later we had a power outage, and our classroom clocks had not been reset. I asked Luis, who was wearing a wristwatch, for the time. Luis looked at his wrist, and then confidently announced, "It is exactly ten o'watch." Contributed to Reader's Digest "All In a Day's Work" by Dolores A. Foley. I'm a hospital chaplain. You know what a diagnostic is? Someone who doesn't believe in two gods. -Rev. John W. Price. (I prepared for ministry at a punnery...)

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Pot pourri de nos échanges... 1. Les "règles" du comparatif et du superlatif sont, comme bon nombre de "règles", maniables à l'intérieur de certaines limites... "When *I* use a word," said Humpty, "it means just what I want it to mean, no more, no less." "The question," said Alice, "is whether you can make a word mean so many different things. "The question," said Humpty, "is who is to be the master, that's all." trouvé dans Joyce cette phrase : "they met always in the evening and chose the most quiet quarters for their walks together." (Dubliners, A Painful Case, Granada p.101 On trouve "comfortabler" dans Paul Auster: Compléter: There are far... in India than a hundred years ago. (tigers) far fewer ou far less? Aucune hésitation : les profs français sont plus royalistes que la reine et exigent 'fewer' avec un nom dénombrable. Malheureusement, Radio 4 nous casse la baraque en préférant "less" de plus en plus souvent. Quand vont-ils enfin écouter les concepteurs d'examens français? :-) Les élèves ont beaucoup de mal à se glisser dans la tête des concepteurs d'examens !!! On peut se planter souvent par rapport aux réponses préconisées par les commissions d'harmonisation... AN. "Curiouser and curiouser," said Alice. Effet de style, rien d'autre... Il y a une différence entre ce qu'un auteur qui manipule la langue peut faire, et ce que peut faire un élève qui peine à se l'expliquer. Les "règles" du comparatif et du superlatif sont comme bon nombre de "règles" maniable à l'intérieur de certaines limites... 1. You should take the plane to go to London. It is ...(fast) faster ou the fastest ?au début je n'acceptais que le premier et maintenant je suis en train de me dire que le second n'est pas vraiment faux...si on sous entend means of transport... faster, probablement : si le concepteur avait voulu un superlatif, il auraitrajouté 'means of...'. The problem here is: while quiet is technically two syllables (qui-et), yet in the real world of usage, it is pronounced as though it were one syllable, i. e., 'quite.' So, it would come off the tongue as, 'quite-er' & 'quite-est.' I remember with what difficulty I tried to pronounce the future of French verbs like 'attirer' & 'espérer,' trying to .put both R's in the pronunciation, until someone showed me that in reality, they are pronounced more like the passé simple, so don't worry about it. Maybe that is not technically correct, but in real usage, that's the way they are pronounced. Whatever you do, don't get hung up on rules in English. Rules are good, overall, and needed. But one would not have to look far, nor long, to find exceptions to the rules. They are broken right and left, by very good English writers. I understand this makes a teacher's job more difficult, but..... welcome to English! Just take 'em as they come and don't be surprised at anything in English. We have NO Académie Anglaise to keep us straight. I always insist that our language is a reflection of our freedoms. We absolutely do not want to embalm our language and have it for a static display in a museum. Let it live! Let it be free! Even when it seems bizarre. -JS Wilkins, a US native speaker... Comments: > JSW has hit the nail on the head. Are we teaching "une langue vivante" or not? How many times do YOU have to explain to your pupils that common usage has changed the rules? Example today in class: I accepted "he has learnt" and "he has learned" in an English test, even though our book only shows "learnt" (cf an up-to-date dico) And how many times do you native English teacher teach things you would NEVER actually say? Example (for me): Have you got? to 6ème, instead of Do you have? But if you come from a different part of England you probably wouldn't agree. Rules are made to be broken but, as B. said, "Notre but principal c'est que les élèves réussissent les examens". So, "when in Rome..." but keep listening to the Beeb! -Sarah. > Ceci dit, "quieter" et "quietest" me semblent plus usuels que "more quiet" ou "most quiet". Est-ce parce que la diphthongue déroge à la règle des syllabes? Quoiqu'il en soit, nous devons accepter les deux réponses comme bonnes, venant de nos élèves, tout comme nous devons accepter à la fois "less people" et "fewer people", même si la dernière est préférable d'un point de vue "corrigé-du-bac"... -Philip Benz, native US speaker et prof d'anglais en Ardèche. > Quoiqu'il en soit, sachant que "less" ne serait pas accepté au bac les élèves doivent être guidés fermement vers "fewer". Ils auront tout loisir de prendre des libertés plus tard quand ils ne prendront plus de risques. Tout auteur anglophone s'autorise des licences (que l'on refuse d'ailleurs aux anglicistes), notamment en poésie lorsqu'une syllabe supplémentaire est requise (pb. de pieds & de scansion), ou bien souhaite établir un parallèle entre deux comparatifs ou encore place "more" en facteur commun de deux adjectifs (quelle que soit leur longueur). Ci-après : un bref résumé que je donne à des élèves post-bac (car la règle adjs. courts / adjs. longs mérite d'être nuancée : le nombre de syllabes n'est pas le seul facteur ...). - B., collègue en LP. COMPARATIFS ET SUPERLATIFS Bien qu'il n'y ait point de règle absolue, quelques tendances (fiables?) semblent se dégager, à savoir : ADJECTIFS : 1) Généralement «courts», d'où ajout de « -er » , « the -est » : a - tous les adjectifs comportant une seule syllabe, sauf ceux qui ont une terminaison de participe passé (pleased) ainsi que ...  real , drunk, cross , dead : lesquels (de par leur sens) se conçoivent difficilement à la forme comparative !] b - tous les adjectifs dissyllabiques qui se terminent par  y (pretty), er (clever), le (gentle, noble),  ow (shallow, narrow) le sont généralement. Les contre-exemples existent cependant en littérature !... 2) adjectifs longsŒ d'où l'emploi de «more» + adj., «the most» + : a - Adjectifs de deux syllabes qui se terminent par : useful useless, careless usual , vital curious , glorious , cautious fertile , mobile bookish, selfish active vivid , splendid b - adjectifs formés avec le préfixe a- tels que afraid (on ne peut envisager de forme comparative avec alone, cela dit) c - adjectifs de plus de deux syllabes, sauf ceux formés d'un préfixe négatif et dŒun adjectif court (ex : unhappy). ADVERBES : leur comparatif se forme comme celui des adjectifs (longer, faster S). Les adverbes de deux syllabes en °ly sont considérés comme longs sauf early  (cf. earlier). Voici ce que j'ai trouvé dans  The Concise Oxford Dictionary : "Usage : The use of fun as an attributive adjective, e.g. It was essentially a fun project, is common in informal use, but is considered incorrect by some people." (Attention au faux-ami : "attributive" = épithète) Le fait que fun soit surtout considéré comme un adjectif toujours attribut ("predicative adjective"), et non pas comme un adjectif épithète ("attributive adjective") pourrait-il expliquer que n'existe pas la forme "funner" ? (Comparer avec d'autres adjectifs qui n'existent qu'en fonction attribut comme : "afloat", "afraid", "alike", alive", "alone", "asleep", "awake" mais aussi "ill" - On ne peut pas dire *"He is ill and he is getting iller and iller.") 2. This ouvre sur quelque chose, that clôture... > Lapaire "démonte" la notion de distance enseignée par la grammaire descriptive, de plus j'ai trouvé pleins d'exemples dans la série "Seinfeld" où this désigne un objet éloigné et that un objet rapproché!!!! 3. Some irregular verbs which are fast becoming regular in native speaker use : learn, dream, knit, burn (burned, US; burnt, GB), light (lit, lighted) ... Dive : dived (UK) Dive : dove (US) Ces ruptures ne sont pas forcément dues à une quelconque <<méconnaissance de la grammaire conventionnelle>> mais plutôt à une manipulation sciement orchestré des codes conventionnels de grammaire. Tout ce qui sort de l'ordinaire, qui s'écarte de nos attentes, attire notre attention, soit pour moduler notre appréciation de l'interlocuteur (personnage ou auteur) soit pour servir un autre but rhétorique.

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Worthplay : longest word you can spell without repeating a letter: uncopyrightable - longest word with just one vowel: strengths. Only English word with a triple letter: goddessship. Word with the longest definition in most dictionaries: set. Shortest -ology (study of) word: oology (the study of eggs). Only word in which an "f" is pronounced like a "v": of. Strange & amusing word confusions. Quand les profs se régalent de l'humour des élèves. Indian English -"a savory stepmother tongue to hundreds of millions of Indians (more Indians speak English than Englishmen do), an invaluable memento of a century-long mishmash, and a grand and distinctive product of a culture verbally supple and full of energy." -P. Iyer, English in India: Still All the Raj, New York Times, 10 Aug 97. Unsung hero page. Best love letters of all times. Classic Love Poetry : Shakespeare, Browning, Frost, Yeats and more outstanding poets. Entertaining language pages. Word Play: fun with words. Crazy English menu : idioms, etymology and other idiosyncrasies of English - with tests for your students! Manchester uniting : one of England's largest police forces is setting a standard in polite language, especially when it comes to minorities: general advice applicable to all races, such as using terms such as "elderly" instead of "old biddy," or "disabled person" instead of "spastic"... A testament to the racial complexity of English society today, such as whether one should use the term "Afro-Caribbean" when the person in question was born in England... Rasta Patois Glossary

Montserrat Creole - an Irish brogue? Roots of Identity: English spoken in York and North East England, marginalized varieties of English in North America, the UK, the Caribbean. South of the Mason-Dixie line, that Southern drawl. US Slanguage - pick a city, talk like the locals! Anglicismes bien gaulois: mots français perdus puis retrouvés grâce à l'anglais sous des formes et avec des sens différents, vrais anglicismes inaperçus... American ® British - "The American language differs from the English in that it seeks the top of expression while English seeks its lowly valleys." ¸Salvador de Madariaga. Language Humor link. "Les oiseaux d'un même plumage volent ensemble"... "Ciel mon mari!"...¡¿¡ horrores ?!? Charpentier JP de Sologne propose deux parcours d'obstacles pour tester votre capacité à retrouver les équivalents de proverbes et dictons dans les deux langues. Toutes ces phrases utilisent toutes les lettres de l'alphabet: 'Portez ce vieux whisky au juge blond qui fume'. 'Servez à ce monsieur une bière et des kiwis'. 'The Quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog'. 'Jouvenceaux, trafiquez: déplombage, whisky ! Zweig : psychonévrotique ex-judoka flambé ! Patchwork funambulesque : divaguez joyeux ! Zweig modifia le juke-box psychonévrotique. Magnifique walkyrie, objectivez hexapodes. Walkyrie, adjugez pacifiquement vos hiboux. Objectif gravidique : asphyxiez walkman!

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Why English is so hard We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes; But the plural of ox should be oxen not oxes. Then one fowl is goose, but two are called geese; Yet the plural of moose should never be meese. You may find a lone mouse or a whole lot of mice; But the plural of house is houses not hice. If the plural of a man is always called men, Why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen? The cow in the plural may be cows or kine, But the plural of vow is vows, not vine. And I speak of a foot and you show me your feet, But I give 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? If the singular is this and the plural is these, Should the plural of kiss be nicknamed kese? Then one may be that, and three may be those, Yet the plural of hat would never be hose. We speak of a brother and also the brethren, But though we say mother, we never say methren. The masculine pronouns are he, his, and him, But imagine the feminine she, shis, and shim! So our English, I think you will agree, Is the trickiest language you ever did see. Anonymous Anagram Genius for Windows to instantly make anagrams of your own name and those of your friends and colleagues and steer the results with access to the underlying words. Grinding an axe ? metathetic variations: aks ! When you hear someone pronouncing "ask" as "aks" or "pretty" as "purty", do you find yourself looking down your nose? Not so fast! What you're witnessing is the English language busy at work, mutating, evolving, and refurbishing its wordstock, making things easier to pronounce. Known as metathesis, it is the same process that gave us dirt (from drit) and curd (from crud!). If you ever used the word flimsy, you did it: the word is the metathesized form of the word filmsy. Many everyday words appear in a form created by such interchange of letters: the word bird came from Old English brid, third from thridda. Going back to "ask," here is an interesting twist. The word "ask" itself came from Old English forms acsian and ascian that co-existed. Eventually the former won over and became standard. So what we are seeing here is history repeating itself. A few hundred years and who knows, we may be exhorting, "Aks not what your country can do for you ..." Anu Garg, AWAD, awordaday.   _____________________________ All words are pegs to hang ideas on. Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887). Ail ou radis? Are you ready? Êtes-vous prêt? Saintes salopes - Thanks a lot - Merci beaucoup Débile - The bill - L'addition Mords mon nez - More money - Plus d'argent On le donne à ces connes - Hold on a second - Ne quittez pas Qu'on gratte tous les jeunes ! - Congratulations ! - Félicitations! Marie qui se masse - Merry Christmas - Joyeux Noël Oui Arlette - We are late - Nous sommes en retard Mais dîne Franz - Made in France - Fabriqué en France Il se pique Germaine - He speaks German - Il parle allemand Ahmed a l'goût de tripes - I made a good trip - J'ai fait un bon voyage Youssef vole ma femme au lit - You saved all my family - Tu as sauvé toute ma famille Sale teint de pépère - Salt and pepper - Le sel et le poivre Six tonnes de chair ° Sit on the chair - Asseyez-vous sur la chaise Dix nourrices raidies ° Dinner is ready - Le dîner est prêt Beaune-Toulouse - Born to lose - Né pour perdre Les slips tout gais serrent - Let's sleep together ° Dormons ensemble Guy vomit sous mon nez - Give me some money - Donne-moi un peu d'argent Âme coquine - I'm cooking - Je cuisine Délicate et saine - Delicatessen - Épicerie fine Deux bouts de chair - The butcher ° Le boucher Varices de grosseur - Where is the grocer? - Où est l'épicier? C'est que ça pèle - Sex appeal - Attirance sexuelle Ma queue perd son alcool - Make a personal call - Passer un coup de fil personnel Extrait de "Ail ou Radis?", Éditions Michel Lafon, Paris 1996. ¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨ Many Years Ago Many many years ago when I was twenty three, I got married to a widow who was pretty as could be. This widow had a grown-up daughter Who had hair of red. My father fell in love with her, And soon the two were wed. This made my dad my son-in-law And changed my very life. My daughter was my mother, For she was my father's wife. To complicate the matters worse, Although it brought me joy. I soon became the father Of a bouncing baby boy. My little baby then became A brother-in-law to dad. And so became my uncle, Though it made me very sad. For if he was my uncle, Then that also made him brother To the widow's grown-up daughter Who, of course, was my step-mother. Father's wife then had a son, Who kept them on the run. And he became my grandson, For he was my daughter's son. My wife is now my mother's mother And it makes me blue. Because, although she is my wife, She's my grandma too. If my wife is my grandmother, Then I am her grandchild. And every time I think of it, It simply drives me wild. For now I have become The strangest case you ever saw. As the husband of my grandmother, I am my own grandpa !!

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Words are things; and a small drop of ink Falling like dew upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. - Lord Byron, 1788-1824. ACCUEIL OBJECTIFS-- DE LA PAGE PROGRAMMES AGREG 2001 PREPARER L'AGREG RAPPORTS---- DE JURY - DIDACTIQUE, ECRIT & ORAL: EPREUVES CONSEILS BIBLIOGRAPHIE ABORDER--- LES EPREUVES WIRED---- DIDACTIQUE BRANCHEE FACE AU - JURY DISSERTATION LINGUISTIQUE ART DE LA TRADUCTION 2002 TOPICS Joyce's Dubliners Antony & Cleopatra ACCUEIL Poverty in Britain Wharton Crime John Donne Traductologie Gulliver's Travels Women In Love NEWS DAILY --CARTOON YOUR COMMENTS ANGLAIS AU PRIMAIRE--- COLLEGE ------ & LYCEE TEACHING KIDS WEB USE------ PLANS DE COURS--------- INTER- DISCIPLINARITE MUSIC ------- & SONG BACKGROUND MUSIC IN CLASS SHAKESPEARE-- EN MUSIQUE SHAKESPEARE AU LYCEE? GRAMMAR & SPELLING GRAMMAIRE DE L'ENONCIATION ---PHONOLOGIE & PHONETIQUE VOYAGES LINGUISTIQUES ECHANGES SCOLAIRES ELECTRONIQUES ASSISTANTS & LOCUTEURS NATIFS GIVING STUDENTS CONTROL LISTENING ACTIVITIES -TEACHERS AND TECHNOLOGIES LA PRESSE EN CLASSE D'ANGLAIS HEURISTIQUE & CONSTRUCTIVISTE ERE NUMERIQUE LANGUES ET TECHNOLOGIE TEACHING READING LIRE DU TEXTE AUTHENTIQUE ENGLISH CRAZY- LANGUAGE! INTELLIGENCE & APPRENTISSAGE THEORIE & PRATIQUE SYSTEME ET EVOLUTION LE MULTIMEDIA LE RETRO- PROJECTEUR LA VIDEO ESPACES LANGUES CROSS- CURRICULAR, LES TPE Hate is too great a burden to share. We must meet hate with creative love. -M.L.King. A.Word.A.Day PARENTS, TEACHERS, DISCIPLINE DISCIPLINE CAHIER MAGIQUE LE CINEMA ANGLAIS TECHNIQUE ET DES AFFAIRES USEFUL -- LINKS THE MARGINAL AND THE NEEDY SPECIAL -THANKS An E-TEACH vebring site Previous 5 Sites | Previous | Next | Next 5 Sites | Random Site | Site List Ce site expérimental non officiel... lire cet avertissement. This independent, experimental site... read the disclaimer. Vos commentaires et suggestions utiles sont un élément important d'une approche sans parti-pris. L'auteur n'approuve pas nécessairement les contenus cités ou les liens proposés. Page indépendante, tiçage de Jean S. Sahai, PLP2, Guadeloupe, Antilles Françaises. LA PAGE D'AGREG - since December 1996 © Jean S. Sahaï, 1996-2011 - Guadeloupe, Antilles Françaises.

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