22 Reasons Why English Is Hard

I found this little gem while searching for an old George Carlin/Gallagher bit about English pronunciation. I read through these and actually had to stop and slow down on a few of them! Have fun!

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) After a number of injections my jaw got number.
19) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
22) He decided to comb the tomb to find the bomb.

I hope I get this attention when I die!

Check out this article on CNN. Unfortunately, I don't think any of my students will make me famous, but it is wishful thinking. You never know. I may have the future President of Korea in one of my classes!

BEIJING, China (AP) -- Zhang Hanzhi, an elegant Chinese diplomat who was Mao Zedong's English tutor and an interpreter during the historic 1972 meeting between the Communist leader and U.S. President Richard Nixon, has died. She was 72.

I love the word elegant and I can just picture her in my mind.

She met Mao in 1950, at a party to celebrate the first anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, and again in 1963 at Mao's 70th birthday. He seemed relaxed and happy and asked to be her student when he found out she taught English. "Why not?" he asked, when she said she wouldn't dare.

"The Chairman wanted the lessons to start the following day! I was dumbfounded," Zhang wrote in a 1999 article for Time magazine. "I was to teach the great leader whom over a billion people worshiped as their god?"

She described Mao as an ambitious student who was keen on vocabulary -- especially political terms -- and proper word usage, although he had no interest in grammar and correcting his accented pronunciations.

I was going to use this article in my highest class, but read the last line. My upper students would have had a field day with that one. I can hear them now " But teacher, Mao didn't care about grammar and pronunciation......Why should we?"