Oh dear... O.o

I love english and its probably my favourite language for its grammal simplicity and plasticity. But the random pronunciation drives me insane.

Needs more upvotes. "the sound a plunger makes" outstanding and 100% hilarious

I love that example!

I had to say that in my mind like 50 times until it made sense

If I try to write that i think i will break my corrector

Yeah but that's true for every language. You rarely have "full" synonyms that are completely interchangeable in every context (non-native speakers are generally detectable by breaking unspoken context rules) . Apart from minute differences in meaning, most words also have meanings beyond the thing they describe, such as opinion.

And did you pick him up?

Why is the nose running and the feet smell???

*Takes notes*. Don't use s**t when talking to someone...

This is brilliant.

Love this one!

It will say BOOM later on

Lining up in silence, exactly as a queue should be!

Sarcasm, I guess. Use the word in a sarcastic context too often and it changes the meaning to the opposite. Happens frequently.

Also "gaol" O.O

Shouldn't "emordnilap palindrome" simply be a palindrome?

I warn bored panda to remove this one. This could cause various murders by the readers here.

...... foreign neighbour's heifer

Quite impressive

isn't that convenient?

I was taking a TEFL (Teaching English as a foreign Language) qualification in Japan, and one of the exercises I had to do was read to a class of students. The one word that stuck in my mind was black bird versus blackbird. The difference is so subtle, but I hadn't given it any thought until you had to explain the difference.

My English teacher taught me not to use "handy" in English because it would be a derogatory term for handicapped people. Is that true?

*jabs finger at my screen* America explain!!!

And here is another strange "Americdnism" I spit my cereal, I would say I spat my cereal...

Whoever came up with those names for the hair colors were color blind

That would be a nice nickname for bored panda!

I have a medical condition which resulting in tearing of the cornea. When I write that, people sometime get confused. My cornea doesn't produce liquid, it rips apart and is excruciatingly painful, but tearing can make it feel a little better because the liquid lubricates and protects the tear.

Fun with sounds and spelling

And the B in tomb is silent, and the E in time is silent, and the T in often is silent, and the H in honor is silent, how do you pronounce BETH? It's all silent letters!

Because the Frigidaire brand became so popular that “fridge” was used as the term for all refrigerators.

Fairly sure this is because U used to be written as a V

Why do Americans say dove instead of dived? He dived into the pool, not he dove into the pool. That is what I was taught at school anyway. Also hanged and hung He was hanged from the tree, not he was hung from the tree. Is this a specifically American thing. No offence, just genuinely would like to know.

Welcome to the English language

The country’s starting letter(s) switched from ‘f’ to ‘ph’ when Spanish rule was replaced by American rule. No idea why the same did not happen to the demonym, however.

*chortle* I go with "Pinoy" a lot. That confuses people even more.

The word “Filipino” is spelled with an “f” because it’s derived from the Spanish name for the Philippine Islands: las Islas Filipinas. Originally, after Magellan’s expedition in 1521, the Spanish called the islands San Lázaro, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. But in 1543 the Spanish renamed them las Islas Filipinas, after King Philip II. (“Philip” is Felipe in Spanish.) In English, however, the name was translated from the Spanish as “the Philippine islands” or “the Philippines.” The earliest published reference in the OED is from Samuel Purchas’s Pilgrimage (1613): “Those Islands, which more properly beare the Philippine title.” And here’s another early citation, from Nathaniel Crouch’s The English Empire in America (1685): “A great Ship called the St. Anna expected from the Philippine Islands.” The country is now known as the Republic of the Philippines, but the Spanish spelling was retained for “Filipino.” The word is an adjective as well as a noun.

Never mind ‘Netherlands’ and ‘Dutch’. I’ve been asked so many times why they’re so different as if I’ve created the language 😄

Philippines is from King Philip II of Spain.

I'm not sure I've written Filipino down before today. I've now added filipino at 167th things to worry about.

:o

English is definitely not boring

Human was first recorded in the mid 13th century, and owes its existence to the Middle French humain “of or belonging to man.” That word, in turn, comes from the Latin humanus, thought to be a hybrid relative of homo, meaning “man,” and humus, meaning “earth.” Thus, a human, unlike birds, planes, or even divine spirits up above, is a man firmly rooted to the earth

You used to be able to just step on the bus and remain standing (back when there were conductors and the entrance/exit was at the back). Time moves on and language doesn't. Do you still hang up the phone?