Heteronyms

This is something a dear friend of mine sent to me and I found it so interesting that I thought of sharing it with you all:

A little something to mess up your mind………………….

 

 

 

 Homographs  are words of like spelling but with more than one meaning. A  homograph that is also pronounced differently is a  heteronym.

                                                                         

     You  think English is easy??

    I  think a retired English teacher was bored...THIS IS  GREAT!  

Read  all the way to the end.................

This took a lot of  work to put together! 

    

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) Upon seeing  the tear in the painting I shed a  tear.

19) I had to subject  the subject to a series of  tests.

20) How can I intimate this to my  most intimate friend?

    

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 animal organs. 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? 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? 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?

How can a slim  chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a  wise guy are opposites? 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, is not a race  at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible,  but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

PS. -  Why doesn't 'Buick' rhyme with 'quick'?

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 writeUP  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 cleanUP  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.

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.

If 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!

Now  it's UP  to  you what you do with this email