What is the most confusing thing about the English language?

[LostInAnomie]

I say the contraction for "will not". If you go by the rules for all other contractions it should be "willn't", but instead it is "won't".

It just doesn't make sense! :crazy:

[opiate69]

1. "...ough"

Through - Threw
Bough - Bow
Trough - Trof

[Oeditpus Rex]

2. You saw that 'I Love Lucy' episode too, huh?

:toast:

But you left out "rough" (ruff).

[opiate69]

5. Was that in "Lucy"?? I thought I was stealing it from Galagher..

:shrug:
:toast:

[Oeditpus Rex]

21. It was the one

where Lucy insisted they all take diction lessons after hearing Ricky practice reading a bedtime story, so the baby wouldn't pick up any bad pronunciation habits from them.

The story Ricky read had "bough," "through," "rough" and "cough" in it. He mispronounced them all, reasoning that the -ough sound was consistent. Silly boy.

"Well, I know it can't be 'cow'."

:rofl:

[LostInAnomie]

3. Good one

Another one that confuses me is "an" followed by a long vowel sound. If you follow the normal rule "an" is followed by a word that starts with a vowel, but not always.

... an electrician - ok
... an ace - ok
... an universe - nope

[opiate69]

6. Yeah.. and, isn't it "An historian"? I always see it as "A historian" in papers lately..

[Manifestor_of_Light]

24. an historian is right.

[RebelOne]

33. Wrong. It's a historian.

[Kajsa]

51. Correct, Rebel.

'An' is used when the noun begins with a vowel.

ex; An apple, a pear, a banana, an elephant.

The exception is 'u', which can be preceded by both
'a' and 'an'. 'A' is used when it's a long 'u' as in 'university' and 'union'.
The short 'u' as in 'understanding' is preceded by 'an'.

Yes, it's complicated!

[Rabrrrrrr]

53. Not entirely - an historian is correct in british usage; american is a historian.

Also, "an" is used whenever the next word is *pronounced* to start with a non-consonant sound, so we get "an hour" and "a universal joint". And this is why in British usage it's "an historian" because they mostly don't pronounce the h. I prefer "an", and use it with "historian" because I find that pronouncing the a, which requires a glottal stop, and then pronouncing the "h", which is an aspirant, to be difficult for my speaking cords and mouth.

[Kajsa]

54. You got me there, Rabrrrr.

I'm not familiar with the British usage.

After years of saying' a historian', my mouth is used to it.

;-)

[Truthiness Inspector]

10. LOL

Never thought of it that way, but now that you mention in, it seems to be "u" as the vowel to be the exception, or at least in most/many cases. A union. A unicorn. A unicycle. A university.

Any "u" words that should be prefaced with an "an"?

On edit: An undertaking.

Yes, we take English for granted! Ha!

[opiate69]

11. an understanding.. maybe it's only "an" for the "hard" U (Or whatever the hell it's called)

[Truthiness Inspector]

12. Good example

lol. Most "un" stuff would be prefaced with an "an." As in, what an underhanded thing to do!

I think I was having an unintelligent moment, ha!

[July]

29. And "slough."

Pronounced "sluff" for one meaning (shed or cast off) and "sloo" for another (bog or swamp).

[TommyO]

44. Sluff? I've always pronounced it "sloff"

[Kutjara]

49. Or Slough (rhymes with "now")...

...if you're talking about the London suburb of Slough. As immortalized in the John Betjeman poem:

Slough

Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!

Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
Those air -conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
Tinned minds, tinned breath.

Mess up the mess they call a town-
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week a half a crown
For twenty years.

And get that man with double chin
Who'll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women's tears:

And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.

But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It's not their fault that they are mad,
They've tasted Hell.

It's not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It's not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead

And talk of sport and makes of cars
In various bogus-Tudor bars
And daren't look up and see the stars
But belch instead.

In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.

Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.

[Rabrrrrrr]

41. The Tough Coughs as He Ploughs the Dough Through the Rough Hiccough

[idgiehkt]

4. the words.

definitely. :)

[Karenina]

27. Phrasal verbs.

There are brazillions and their meaning depends entirely on context. Imagine yourself a non-native speaker confronted with the sentence, "We used to go there."

Brush up on some of these!!!

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 mixed UP 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. I f 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 !

Oh . . one more thing:

What is the first thing you do in the morning & the last thing you do at
night? U-P

[idgiehkt]

35. wow.

Interesting. I remember overhearing a conversation where one friend asked another "what's up?" and the other responded "Totally useless terminology." I guess you just proved her wrong. :)

[Shell Beau]

7. I would say the different meanings of words that sound the same and are spelled the same

sometimes. Ex: night, knight; sale, sell, sail; buy, by; to, too; read, read-red; etc.

[Unvanguard]

8. If I were to answer "the subjunctive mode"

I would be correct.

:)

[Critters2]

13. The subjunctive is a mode, not a tense.

Which makes it even more confusing.

[Unvanguard]

15. Whatever.

While my grasp of English grammar is pretty good, my knowledge of the vocabulary is comparatively lacking.

[Critters2]

17. Yes, yes you would.

The subjunctive mode is confusing in every language. English is no exception.

[Unvanguard]

18. Si fuera contestar "el modo subjuntivo"

también estaría correcto.

(I think that's correct... see? :))

[Critters2]

19. Muy bueno. Habla espanol mucho mejor como mi

Not that I've set the bar all that high!!


J'ai appris le mode subjonctif en français avant l'anglais. C'était embrouillant, aussi!

[Unvanguard]

22. Actually, I'm pretty sure now that it's totally wrong.

But I'm not sure how to fix it.

[Critters2]

23. Worry not. My Spanish sucks.

Leave it to me to minor in a language that's becoming irrelevant, and consistently cut class for the one that's actually useful.

Hey, if I were smart I would've studied something technological, and employable.

[DBoon]

9. "th"

an archaic Germanic consonant found only in English and Icelandic, and unpronounceable by anyone else

[Karenina]

26. I've been quite successful

teaching my German students the tongue/breath coordination for "th." It took me 3 days to get the German "ch" which was a piece of cake compared to ü. :banghead:

[u4ic]

14. Everything

[charlie]

16. Or this

I am going to go.
I'm going to go.
I'm goin' to go.
I'm gonna go.
I'm 'unna go. (spoken)

An English novice has to attune his ears to 5 different phrasings of the same sentence.

[Karenina]

47. or...I'm goin'.

:evilgrin:

[frogcycle]

55. dammit

now I have to go

[leftofthedial]

20. the people who speak it

[Manifestor_of_Light]

25. Remember the vowels?

A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y and W.

Now would somebody tell me when "W" is a vowel???

[Random_Australian]

28. that Random_Australian is not pronounced "Almighty Ruler"

So inconsistent. I can draw straight lines like no-one else, I tells ya!

[Godhumor]

30. Most confusing thing? The fact that this is an acceptable sentence

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Or broken down, in my own words:

Buffalo from Buffalo buffalo other buffalo from Buffalo who buffalo yet other buffalo from Buffalo.

A professor of my alma mater came up with it to demonstrate the, uh, unique qualities of the English language.

History of the sentence can be seen here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo

[unpossibles]

38. that's awesome.

it's even better than the use of the word fuck: Fuck; fuck those fucking fucks.

[swimboy]

39. On a recent grammar examination, John, where Mary

had had 'had had', had had 'had'. 'Had had' had had the teacher's approval.

The buffalo sentence is the best thing I will learn this month. Thanks.

[RedStateShame]

31. Grammatical inconsistencies

Being as English is one of the most cosmopolitan languages in the world (read: We steal from everyone's languages.), very few grammatical and spelling rules span across the board. For example, given the spelling and pronunciations of certain words, a new English speaker could assume that the word we know as "fish" is spelled "phuti" based on words like "phone," "business," and "motion," for example.

[Chan790]

32. Not so much doesn't make sense...

but it's the only language I know of with conjugating verbs that doesn't have a distinct plural-form "you". That's is annoying to me, at least. I am determined to make "y'all" proper English...like it should be.

[Raffi Ella]

43. That bothers me too.

I use 'y'all' and 'you guys' but I don't really like using either.But anything else sounds too formal.

I also sometimes get caught up in the proper use of words or the structure of sentences in general;If I stop to think about what I'm typing I could get confused very easily on the correct placement and usage of words(even though the sentence makes sense it may or may not be correct).

[raccoon]

34. The spelling. The way words that are spelled alike are pronounced

so differently.

Such as rough, through, bough, as someone already pointed out.

We need phonetic spelling.

[ganeshji]

36. I have to add snow and plow to that list.

Should one not be pronounced the same as the other?

[Connonym]

37. Confusing that the repubs haven't demanded it be called "American" instead of "English"

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

40. I forget how to call it...

But when there's a question with a negative in it, and English speakers answer the opposite of the literal meaning.

For example:

Susan: "Aren't you going to the store, John?"

John: "Yes"

Meaning that John is going to the store. ESL learners would look at that and think he's not going to the store.

[Rabrrrrrr]

46. That caused a lot of confusion between my partner and me

She is not a native English speaker, and that weird negative way we have of asking questions threw her off - she would answer logically correctly and piss me off.

"Don't you want to go to the store?"

"No."

"Well, fine, then we'll just sit here."

Until I realized she was responding in the way I hoped she would, just with the wrong words. Then we got it sorted out, and I learned not to use that kind of sentence structure with her, and if I accidentally do, she gives a full answer: "I do want to go to the store, yes", just to be sure.

[Karenina]

57. And those question tags...

We're not going to the store, are we?

We're going to the store, aren't we?

The trick being whether the voice goes up or down on the tag is an indicator of the speaker's position.

[TommyO]

42. Two, too, to - and all of the other homonyms

[majorjohn]

45. Certain Idioms n/t

[Karenina]

48. English is the "great borrower"

and according to Carlos the drummer...

"Englisch she no one lanwage mon, she many MANY lanwage."

[Xipe Totec]

50. flammable means it can burn,

but inflammable means it can burst into flames.

:crazy:

[Kutjara]

52. Cholmondeley Featherstonehaugh

Pronounced "Chumley Fanshaw" of course. Or Magdalene College, pronounced "Maudlin College." Or Gonville and Caius, pronounced "Gonville and Keys." Or Worcestershire Sauce, pronounced "Woostershire" or simply "Wooster" sauce.

American English has nothing on English English for absurd and confusing pronunciations.

[tandot]

56. The pronunciation of Kansas and Arkansas. What gives?

Who came up with that. ahr-kuhn-saw???

[KamaAina]

61. The Arkansas River rises in Kansas

true to form, Kansans pronounce it the "Ar-Kansas". Same with "Ar-Kansas" City, KS.

[Deja Q]

58. That's a good one. But can I cant about the word can't?

:rofl:

[WritingIsMyReligion]

59. Nothing. I love the English language. I love language in general.

It doesn't confuse me ever, really. :)

[jobycom]

60. rhythm and decriminalization

Rhythm is one screwed-up word.

Decriminalization is almost impossible to type without pausing and counting syllables.

[KamaAina]

62. All the five-dollar words like "misunderestimated" and "Hispanically"

:P

[Phentex]

63. What's wrong with the word "squozen"?

You freeze it, it's frozen. You squeeze it, it's squozen. I like using squoze and squozen.