Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Horse...hoarse...

Isn't the English language strange.  Words that sound the same but are spelled differently.  Homonyms.

Two words are all it takes to get into too much of this homonym stuff.  Well, that was three words, actually!  My mother always used to tease my dad when he would use the "to, too, and two" words in wrong ways. I remember him asking mom..."Dear, is it TO or TOO?".  Mom would then give him the english lesson once more.

She would say "TO is used to preceed a verb, TOO means it's beyond what is necessary...too much of something...and TWO is the number 2 written out."  He remembered until the next time!

My throat feels hoarse but I also look like a horse.  Try expaining that to someone learning English.

A young woman named Bea was stung by a bee while she attempted to be brave.

What are you doing with a watt that size????

My soul was happy until my sole landed on a tack.

The heir to the throne needed a bit of fresh air to make his speech with an air (oops that was a synonym) of confidence.

And on and on it goes.

Then there is just downright poor English.  And I am certainly not one who knows the English language fully....by any means!!!!!  I use wrong tenses and sometimes wrong adverbs (but at least I attempt to use adverbs...which seems like a lost art!).

The only thing that has always irritated me to no end to the point of driving me totally crazy is when someone says, "I seen"!!!! I SEEN!!!!!!!!!  Imagine!!!!   Educated people.  Regular folks.  People that know better but those two words together have become a wretched habit.  When I hear someone say, "I seen", I cringe inside.  Sometimes I even cringe on the outside.  I want to scream, "I saw!!!! I saw!!!! I saw!!!!!"  But we are educated people, are we not?  And even if we have fallen into a bad habit, we are intelligent enough to break that habit, are we not?????  I trust so.

So, if I hear any of you say, "I seen" once more....I swear (which I don't normally do)....I will......probably not say anything.  It is simply one of my pet peeves about our education.  I learned grammar well in school and anything that sits wrongly with me, I attempt to subtly correct, if the opportunity arises.  And if I do correct you, it's because I feel you deserve to sound as intelligent as I know you are.  When someone hears a person say "I seen", I really think they do a dis-service to the person speaking if they are not corrected.  I would like to be known as being somewhat intelligent....at least sounding intelligent...and if I make a grammatical error, PLEASE CORRECT ME!!!  We are never too old to learn!!!!

OK  That's all I have to say about that!  (for now)

Anyway, enjoy the English language which we have had the privilege of learning, a difficult language, to be sure!  But please, please, please....don't massacre it by saying those two words together...ever again...I seen.....practice saying "I saw".  If you say it 25 times per day, you WILL break the habit.  Guaranteed!!!

I saw...I saw...I saw....I saw....I saw....I saw....I saw....I saw...I saw...I saw...I saw....I saw....I saw...I saw....I saw...I saw....I saw....I saw....I saw....I saw...I saw....I saw..I saw...I saw...I saw....  There, that's one days lesson.

The pet peeve I have about myself is the proper use of apostrophes!!!  That will be another lesson and I think I shall ask my friend, Val, to host the class.  She's a pro!!

See!!!  We all have things to learn:)

Nite all.....

1 comment:

Matthew said...

Thanks for the clarification. I can definitely seen what you mean.