Visual Memory!

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde

Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht

oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny

iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and

lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae.

The rset can be a total mses and you can

sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is

bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed

ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Amzanig huh?

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Wonder Words ~ by Jim Wegryn http://www.jimwegryn.com

English is a marvelous and rich language. Yet native speakers seldom pause to consider its

weird vocabulary. Coming from different countries and cultures and meandering the halls

of history many English words now seem to have paradoxical definitions. These are wonder

words because they make you wonder…

When you eat more vegetables, isn't it fruitless?

Did you ever wonder why funeral starts with the word fun?

Would church music be considered organic?

Isn't dogma a bitch?

What are you vacating when you go on vacation?

Should someone with guests act hostile? Or take them hostage?

Wouldn't it be more accurate to call a fireman a waterman?

Can you enjoy a party fully?

In the navy, is a portly person left-handed?

Is a precaution something you get before a caution?

Do undertakers actually undertake when it comes to fees for service?

Could we call an abstract painting an artificial artifice?

At sundown wouldn't you expect nightrise instead of nightfall?

Would you expect a high-rise of flats to be very tall?

Isn't kidnapping normal in kindergartens?

Aren't even small Catholic churches massive?

Are overjoyed people too happy?

Isn't the center of register the gist of the word?

Can lay people be upstanding citizens?

Why do they call marriage matrimony instead of patrimony?

Like the wheel, wasn't the lazy Susan a revolutionary idea?

Just before an artist's model takes a break, is she predisposed?

Would the ugly truth be called the lowdown lowdown?

How come lipstick doesn't do what it says?

If money doesn't grow on trees, then why do banks have branches?

If a deaf person has to go to court, is it still called a hearing?

If you run errands, aren't you a go-getter?

Why don't we say farrer instead of farther, or nearther instead of nearer?

Isn't a good steak rarely well done?

Didn't rearing children once have something to do with spanking their butts?

Wouldn't it be more correct to call a butterfly a flowerfly?

If you pull the wings off a fly, does it become a walk?

If somebody is armed to the teeth, does he have a neck?

If you cease to be, then come alive, are you deceased?

How come you are still sitting after you sat.

Isn't it amazing that anyone can stand sitting?

Instead of a personality, does a dog have a dogality?

How come someone can be canny and uncanny at the same time?

What's the point of flattery?

If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

Exactly what is so fast about quicksand?

Aren't half-baked ideas rare?

How do you get off a non-stop flight?

When you cash a check, do you check the cash?

What is so proper about property?

Isn't anything underwater also over water?

Are outstanding pay checks good or bad?

Why do they call dwellings stuck together apartments?

Can you orient yourself out west?

Why are there interstates in Hawaii?

Why do caregiver and caretaker mean the same thing?

If you are just kidding, isn't that childish?

At the drive-in theatres, was there a lot of autoeroticism?

Why do we drive on parkways and park on driveways?

Isn't it odd that sweetmeat is basically bread while sweetbread is meat?

Why do we hear music from speakers and dial talk shows on tuners?

Why is brassiere singular and panties plural?

How come people recite at a play and play at a recital?

Why do we iron our clothes and paper our walls?

Why are goods sent by ship called cargo and those sent by truck shipment?

Why does worthless mean the opposite of priceless?

Why are the bigheaded usually also small-minded?

In court, how come you can't swear except under oath?

Doesn't is seem the opposite of ability should be nobility?

If you get a scratch on your car, can you make something from it?

Is it cheating to put silverware and glasses in a dishwasher?

Isn't it odd that to tell time, you look at the hands on the face on the wrist?

If you are assassinated instead of just murdered, are you important?

Shouldn't guests leave a banquest fed up?

In a stadium, why do they call a place where you sit the stands?

How come cook and kook aren't pronounced the same?

Would you rather have your bank account frozen, liquidated, or evaporated?

Then there all those military wonder words.

Why is a bunch of foot soldiers called an army instead of a leggy?

Was George Washington a revolting general?

Why doesn't the military call missiles hittiles instead?

Is a fortress a fort without any guns sticking out?

Is a casualty someone dressed in sweat shirt and jeans?

Does an army major get demoted to a minor?

Shouldn't the army infantry be called the army adultery?

How come an army private doesn't get any privacy?

Specifically, what is an army general?

This entertaining page is just one of the many humorous pages showing how English

language words can be fun, often being the center of jokes, witticisms, puns, and jest and

bringing smiles if not laughter to the comedian in each of us.

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Language reflects the fearful asymmetry of the human race, and you can't get that kind

of logic. In a perfectly logical language, if "pro" and "con" are opposites, then is "congress"

the opposite of "progress"? I mean we have a language in which "What's going on?" and

"What's coming off?" mean the same thing, while a wise man and a wise guy are

opposites, a language in which the third hand on a clock or watch is called the second

hand, and your nose can run and your feet smell. I'm not looking for logic in language

because human beings, not computers, make language, and we're not logical.

—Richard Lederer, Adventures of a Verbivore

English Is Everywhere

March 5, 2004

It has recently come to light that mothers in South Korea have been going to great

lengths to give their children not just a leg up, but a tongue up on speaking English. Not

only do these ambitious parents play their children English nursery rhymes in the womb,

hire pricey tutors for their toddlers and send their preschoolers to America to pick up the

accent. Now, in an effort to give their children an advantage in a highly competitive global

society, the parents are turning to surgery to sort out misplaced l and r sounds. The

procedure, which takes 20-30 minutes under local anesthetic, involves snipping the thin

tissue under the tongue to make it longer and supposedly nimbler.

The mania to learn standard English has even induced changes in the Korean language, like

"goose fathers." These are dads who work in South Korea and fly to the United States for

seasonal reunions with their kids - who have been transplanted to the America just to learn

English.

This flap about a flap of skin in South Korea is just one example that English has become

the closest thing this planet has ever had to being a universal language. Like it or curse it,

about one out of every six of us riding this planet use English in some form. 51.5 percent

of those people learned English as a second (or third or fourth) language. China and India

each have more English speakers than the United States!

A little more than 1,000 years ago, the Vikings conquered England. Today it's the English

are conquering Scandinavia, through their language. Most of the children in Norway,

Finland, Sweden and Denmark learn English by the age of 10, partly because larger

businesses require English to be used as the official language.

Recently, some organizations in Germany joined forces to compile a list of the hundred

words that best reflect the 20th century. AIDS, beat, bikini, camping, comics, computer,

design, Holocaust, image, jeans, pop, single, sex, star, stress -- English words that became

part of the German language during the past hundred years -- are featured in the list. "I

think that language is a mirror of history, and these words reflect that," observed the head

of the Society for German Language. "The English language has become a lingua franca, a

language that the whole world understands."

A professor of English emeritus at National Taiwan University fears that the spread of

English is doing subtle damage: "China has always been a civilization of great politeness

and courtesy," she sighed. "But now our young people through the English they're

studying, are learning to be so off handed. They say 'Hi' to everyone they greet, and

everything is 'OK.'"

Horrors!

Teaching English as a second language has become a multimillion-dollar business the world

over. Reported the director of Bogota's Winston-Salem Language School, "English is the

most profitable business in Colombia - next to drug trafficking, of course." The majority of

best-selling songs world wide have English titles. "English was lyrics to me before it was a

language," said the lead singer for a popular Japanese group.

Moscow Radio has been running a series of programs designed to teach the essential

vocabulary of capitalist society. "Trading Words" teaches its eager listeners the meanings

of phrases such as "Let's talk about that over lunch" and "Do we have a deal?"

Cuba has been replacing the teaching of Russian with the teaching of English. In discussing

the role of English in Cuba's elementary-school curriculum, Fidel Castro commented,

"Although we might not like it, it's a universal language, much easier to learn than Russian

and more precise above all in technical matters."

India, with 179 languages, relies on English to unify the country. "I could never have

married my husband without it," said one Indian woman. "He comes from the north and

speaks Hindi. I'm from the west coast and speak Konkani. I still have trouble speaking with

his mother, although I suppose that's not such a bad thing."

The English language continues to be one of the world's great growth industries, adding

about a thousand new words a year to its word store and, since World War II, garnering

new speakers at an annual rate of more than two percent. Over the course of a millennium

and a half, it has evolved from the rude tongue of a few isolated Germanic tribes into an

international medium of exchange in science, commerce, politics, diplomacy, tourism,

literature and pop culture. If our descendants ever make contact with articulate beings

from other planets and other solar systems, English will beam its vocabulary across outer

space and become a truly universal language.