Buffalos and had-hads

[anatess]

Originally Posted by Jamie123

Perfect!

Another one is: Will Will will the will to Will?

That's an easy one.

When I was in high school, my most hated thing was to get a very long sentence and figure out the parts of speech.

Like for the sentence above... it follows the S-P-DO-IO pattern as follows:
Will is the subject.
Will will is the predicate. (Will of course starts the sentence in a question form)
will is the direct object.
to Will is a prepositional phrase used as the indirect object.

But then, sentences can get super duper long and it becomes so confuddled as to the sentence pattern and parts of speech.

[Jamie123]

Originally Posted by anatess

Philippine schools have at least 3 credit hours of English classes every school year from Kindergarten all the way to High School graduation plus 2 semesters in college. We end up getting exposed to really freaky things like, "Peter piper picked a peck of pickled pepper." to practice proper pronounciation of the letter P. The P is pronounced flat in Bisaya (my dialect) - without air leaving your lips, whereas it is pronounced almost like P-hee in English.

We learn all these crazy figurative expressions - like "The die is cast." which doesn't make sense outside of a board game or casino... and yet, when I arrived in San Francisco, I had a hard time understanding what everyone is saying. All those years of English classes and nobody ever taught me that when an American says, "Yeah right." it doesn't necessarily mean he's agreeing with you and that when Americans use "pretty" as an adjective like in "pretty good" only the person saying it knows exactly what he means.

Totally off-topic Anatess, but I've often wondered what your avatar is a picture of. It would put me out of my mysery if you would explain

[slamjet]

What the freak is going on here?

[anatess]

Originally Posted by Jamie123

Totally off-topic Anatess, but I've often wondered what your avatar is a picture of. It would put me out of my mysery if you would explain

LOL!

That's a picture of Salazar. My son's pet ball python climbing over a tree limb to scope out the water bowl. He was only about 6 months old here. He is now 4 years old and is just over 3 feet long.

[applepansy]

Originally Posted by anatess

Philippine schools have at least 3 credit hours of English classes every school year from Kindergarten all the way to High School graduation plus 2 semesters in college. We end up getting exposed to really freaky things like, "Peter piper picked a peck of pickled pepper." to practice proper pronounciation of the letter P. The P is pronounced flat in Bisaya (my dialect) - without air leaving your lips, whereas it is pronounced almost like P-hee in English.

We learn all these crazy figurative expressions - like "The die is cast." which doesn't make sense outside of a board game or casino... and yet, when I arrived in San Francisco, I had a hard time understanding what everyone is saying. All those years of English classes and nobody ever taught me that when an American says, "Yeah right." it doesn't necessarily mean he's agreeing with you and that when Americans use "pretty" as an adjective like in "pretty good" only the person saying it knows exactly what he means.

"The die is cast" does have meaning outside a board game or casino.

[Vort]

Originally Posted by applepansy

"The die is cast" does have meaning outside a board game or casino.

The phrase appears to have originated in ancient times from the Latin expression "alea iacta est". Nevertheless, it can be understood today as a reference to die casting, which would make equally good sense -- perhaps better, since after you've cast the object, you can't alter it except by melting it down and recasting it.

[anatess]

Originally Posted by applepansy

"The die is cast" does have meaning outside a board game or casino.

Yes, that's exactly what 1 college semester course was all about. To figure out what all those seemingly non-sensical phrases mean. The die is cast before we learned the figurative meaning in college plainly means it's time to move your game piece to however many places...

It's as easy as pie. I can't make pie and from what I've seen, that idiot thing is complicated to make from scratch. So, without going through that semester, I would have no clue what that phrase meant... because, sometimes, phrases are said completely opposite than what is meant (a perfect example of which is my cousin telling me, "good going, Tess" when I dropped the pitcher of juice that splashed all over the kitchen). So, I'm left to wonder... do they mean, Easy as in "really easy" or do they actually mean Easy as in, "it's insanely complicated, duh!".

[RipplecutBuddha]

for instance, why do the phrases 'fat chance' and 'slim chance' have similar meanings?

Why do we park on driveways, and drive on parkways?

two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do...


And we wonder why people don't like to learn English.....

[anatess]

Originally Posted by RipplecutBuddha

for instance, why do the phrases 'fat chance' and 'slim chance' have similar meanings?

Why do we park on driveways, and drive on parkways?

two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do...


And we wonder why people don't like to learn English.....

And let's not even get to the kind of English people in North Florida use... like, "I'm fixing to take a shower"... okay, was it broke?

[applepansy]

Originally Posted by anatess

Yes, that's exactly what 1 college semester course was all about. To figure out what all those seemingly non-sensical phrases mean. The die is cast before we learned the figurative meaning in college plainly means it's time to move your game piece to however many places...

It's as easy as pie. I can't make pie and from what I've seen, that idiot thing is complicated to make from scratch. So, without going through that semester, I would have no clue what that phrase meant... because, sometimes, phrases are said completely opposite than what is meant (a perfect example of which is my cousin telling me, "good going, Tess" when I dropped the pitcher of juice that splashed all over the kitchen). So, I'm left to wonder... do they mean, Easy as in "really easy" or do they actually mean Easy as in, "it's insanely complicated, duh!".

To me "easy as pie" to me means its easy. Pie is easy and fast to make... for me! LOL

I think its is a good discussion. We need to be aware of the words we use because they can mean something different to someone else. Our tone and inflection just don't come through in typed words.