English Vocabulary - A Disaster!

[AlexEfron]

As the title suggests: English Vocabulary is a Disaster.

I've explained this a bit in my earlier myTakes how a vest, undershirt or Wife beater is the same for many non native speakers.

That ☝️ is a vest for me (or maybe if you're American - it's a wife beater)

So anyways, getting back to the topic. Sometimes it can be a real pain if you don't find the right words to describe your emotions. Here's one incident:

The Priest's Lack Of Vocabulary

A Priest used to keep chickens at his church.

One evening, one rooster from his lot went missing. So, at the evening mass prayer, the Priest asker, "Who has a Cock?"

All MEN Stood Up

Priest: "No, I mean, Who has seen a Cock?"

All WOMEN Stood Up

Priest: "No no, I mean, Who has seen a Cock that isn't theirs?"

Half the WOMEN Stood Up

Priest: "For heaven's sake, Who has seen my Cock?"

*All the NUNS Stood Up*

^°°°^°°°^°°°^°°°^°°°^°°°^°°°^°°°^°°°^°°°^°°°^°°°^

That was just one example. Apart from that there are a lot of discrepancies in English spellings!

Take for instance Philippines (country) and the people living there are called Filipino.

Pronunciation of Minute -

Minute(n.) -> Me-nit

Minute(adj.) -> My-n-you-t

WTF!

And then there's the usual scoundrel 'X'.

'X' doesn't have an identity of it's own, it steals the sounds of 'KS' and 'Z' - like: BOX & XYLOPHONE

Same for 'C', 'K' & 'Q' - it's like the same alphabet having split personality disorder. And on top of that C also robs S off his duty - CEREAL (S *singing to himself* - Justin Beiber's That Should Be Me)

(By the way, don't judge me for calling S - 'him'. The alphabets are f'king gender fluid and I'm a guy, so I prefer to refer to it as a guy)

I guess y'all get my point now. So before I go, I'll just yell my slogan #MakeEnglishGreatAgain

(America, already is great, it doesn't need any more greatness)

^°°°^°°°^°°°^°°°^°°°^°°°^°°°^°°°^°°°^°°°^°°°^°°°^

As usual, I didn't mean to offend anyone - especially with the priest joke. If you were offended - I sincerely apologize for that.

Enjoy the joke & Have a Nice Day 😊

[jacquesvol]

Old version: ec.europa.eu/.../styleguide_english_dgt_en.pdf
But!
The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's govt. conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5 year phase in plan that would be known as "EuroEnglish":

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c" ... Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.

The hard "c" will be dropped in favor of the "k". This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have 1 less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with the "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of doubleletters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate spelling. Also, alwil agre that the horible mes of the silent "e"'s in the language is disgraceful, and they should go away.

By the 4th yar, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".

During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaiining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer.

ZE DREM VIL FINALI KUM TRU!!!

[AlexEfron]

😂😂👍

[BaileyisDarcy]

That, sir. Is a singlet.
A wife beater is a type of jumper (or I've always thought it was) and a vest is like a jacket without arms.

People calling it a tank top... a tank top is a type of shirt. A tshirt is a loose skivvy and a skivvy is a tight fitting long sleeved shirt.

Also He and Him aren't actually male gendered words, theyre literally the gender neutral pronoun that happens to also be used for men. So it shouldn't be insulting at all to call a girl him because its a gender neutral term.

[AlexEfron]

:0
He/His = Male
She/Her = Female
They/Them/Their = Neutral Gender
[at least that's what I learnt -_-]

[OlderAndWiser]

I always enjoy reading your posts!

[AlexEfron]

Thank you 😊😊

[BlueCoyote]

This is a tank top, not a vest. A vest is something completely different.
This is a vest:
duncan-nice.com/.../...ston-marron-a-carreaux.html

Vests are usually worn in formal or semi-formal settings, instead of a suit. They are buttoned and frequently combined with a tie (or a bowtie). Underneath, you usually wear either a white shirt or some other type of formal top.
For pants, vests are usually combined either with black or white suit pants or with a good-quality pair of bluejeans.

Tank tops on the other hand are worn underneath a shirt or a t-shirt. They're basically part of your underwear. Some people go to bed in a tank top.

I'm not a native English speaker but this distinction exists in my language too.

[AlexEfron]

I know. But it's called a vest here. What you're showing is a vest - I agree, and we call it a waist-coat.
It's like eggplants - the whole world calls it eggplants but many south Asian countries know it by the name of Brinjal. And yes Brinjal is an English word (British English)

[Tomblebee]

Singlets

[AlexEfron]

@Tomblebee yes 😂 also known as singlets

[Tomblebee]

Was that the elephant in the room?

[CubsterShura]

That priest joke made me laugh for a few minutes before I could read further, lol. Happy Bengali new year! :)

[AlexEfron]

Ah! Shubho Naba Barsho

[TuMeManques]

Great take! I've tried teaching English to non native speakers and it's a nightmare lol.
Wife beater is totally slang, most people in America say tank top.

[AlexEfron]

Oh... I didn't know. 😊

[Aguysopinion4799]

Agreed, however I disagree with Americas greatness (Sorry) But that is a different topic and I won't get into it :p

[AlexEfron]

😂 America is great. We can make it ever greater 😂

[Aguysopinion4799]

That's your opinion, I will respect that and kindly disagree while hoping we can respect each others opinions ^_^

[AlexEfron]

Agreed ☺
Opinions may differ. But I would respect your views as well 😊

[Aguysopinion4799]

Thank you ^_^

[AlexEfron]

😊😊

[MayBlythe]

It's pretty easy to understand if you sit down and learn grammar and pronunciation (Like the fact that for the pronunciation of minute, both are wrong, it's Min-it. My-n-you-t is spelled the same way but means something different)

[Curmudgeon]

I prefer the term "tank tops", which is much better than "wife beaters".

[AlexEfron]

Yeah 😂

[sp33d]

The retardedness is not only present in English. Whoever defends their broken lazy dialect should enjoy serving French fries for 5 dollars/h. God damn teenagers...

[AlexEfron]

:/ you do realise it's a joke

[sp33d]

files.abovetopsecret.com/files/img/vy5330862a.jpg

[MelaninDoll]

I don't really care how I speak, I does what I want, life's too short to be worrying about proper english/grammar. Peeps don't give a shit.

[BOUNTYGUY9]

so very true l dont care l talk my way lol

[Brutal_Honesty]

English is a mix of so many different influences. nordic, franc, germanic, celtic.. it has a bit of everything. thats why it's such a mess, and that's why it has so many words with similar definitions

[AlexEfron]

True

[SnowHearth]

It's not only English, but other languages too, for example Spanish.

[AlexEfron]

I don't know Spanish 😅. So I wouldn't know

[WhereAmI]

If tank top is a vest, what's a vest called? A vest?

[AlexEfron]

Waist coat

[Anonymous]

No I don't see your point. It's the same in a lot of languages.

[AlexEfron]

There is no point. It's a joke

[Pamina]

That joke was great.

But these confusions you describe happen in all languages.

[SuitAndTie]

That is a vest for me too. But that is not a vest for @TuMeManques 😁

[AlexEfron]

At least someone who supports me :)

[N23SA]

Haha good take. English is really confusing but I think it's because they've been taking words from all sorts of languages for ages

[John_Doesnt]

You could have saved yourself some trouble by researching the history of my language. It changes and evolves very quickly. Too bad.

[NightOwl8801]

English and many other languages have setbacks, many words have more than one meaning

[Tomblebee]

Crack up...
America great tho... Convince me.

[AlexEfron]

They spell flavour as flavor, colour as color & apologise as apologize. They make everything simple. That's enough for me to say that America is great 😆

[Tomblebee]

Gray/grey, organis/ze

[AlexEfron]

Yeah 😂

[Brutal_Honesty]

i disagree with American making it simpler.

for example in American English "practice" is a verb as well as a noun. in UK English, the verb is written with an S; "to practise". there are plenty more of such examples

[Anonymous]

Umm, isn’t that an under tank? Like a tank top?

[AlexEfron]

Us south Asians call it a vest

[Opinion Owner]

Kühl