HUMOR
O idioma original do Windows
Quando você quer sair do Windows, não acha estranho ter de clicar no botão "Iniciar"? Então veja este texto, publicado em
uma página da Universidade do Texas, sobre as maluquices do
idioma em que foi criado esse ambiente operacional. Foi mantido em inglês, pois contém muitas expressões praticamente intraduzíveis:
Subject: This is The English Language
When people say communication
would be so much more
simple if everyone in the world just
spoke English,
give them a copy of this!
* * * * *
* * * * * * *
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,
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
the preacher praught?
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 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 piccable? 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 clock 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. |