Via F*ck Yeah English Major Armadillo[Picture: Background — a six piece pie style colour split, alternating black and grey. Foreground — a picture of an armadillo. Top text: “ [Professor threatens to throw self out window at the incorrect use of “it’s”] ” Bottom text: “ [I like this man.] ”]
Via F*ck Yeah English Major Armadillo[Picture: Background — a six piece pie style colour split, alternating black and grey. Foreground — a picture of an armadillo. Top text: “TOM HIDDLESTON TWEETS FIRST FEW LINES OF “TO HIS COY MISTRESS”” Bottom text: “HAVEN’T STOPPED ORGASMING”]
I know this was a month or two ago, but I’m still not over it.
Hiddles.
Via EnigmaticPenguin (of death)In honour of the almost-upon us Olympics, The Guardian has today produced a few tongue-lodged-well-in-cheek guides for foreign visitors to prevent confusion when dealing with us British folk. They’re just my kind of thing!
An etiquette guide for Olympics visitors
A foodie’s guide to London, stay away from the eel and liquor
A quick guide to London English (by an American)
I love the explanation for “can I help you?” as being “the classic British expression of passive aggression, thinly disguised as a kindly offer.” That is very true.
People need to know this. (x)
This was really informative actually.
Educationz! And this is why many Welsh, Scots and Irish people get majorly pissed off when you call them English.
Wonderful graphics! I’ve heard this information before but the diagram helped quite a bit actually.
(Source: timelordsmith)
Via EnigmaticPenguin (of death)“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 meat. 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? 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, isn’t a race at all). That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.”—
(via jasonmotherfuckingtodd)
(Source: -sorry)
Via Everything you were too afraid to askDon’t mind me, just being an 18 year old native English speaker and only noticing now that you can contract “You are not” two different ways.
- “You aren’t.”
- “You’re not.”
You can also do it with is and had with all pronouns!
- “It isn’t.”
- “It’s not.”
- “He hadn’t.”
- “He’d not.”
Poor EFL students…
Fucking English.
And then you have the way most of us (at least here in the Midwest) actually say these things. For example: “He would not.” Can be written as “he’d not” or “he wouldn’t.” Usually comes out sounding like “he’dn’t.” And then you can throw a “have” in there. ”He would not have.” Usually sounds something like “he wouldn’t’ve” or “he’dn’t’ve.” Sometimes I don’t know how anyone actually understands native English speakers when we talk except other native English speakers. But only ones from the same dialectical region, because sometimes we can’t even understand each other across dialects, even when hardly anything has changed.
And this is why I have the utmost respect for people trying to learn this ridiculous language.
Seriously, native speakers don’t realize that on a difficulty scale of 1 to 10, English is fuck you.
Via C.S.'s Blog of Awesome
Via F*ck Yeah English Major Armadillo[Picture: Background — a six piece pie style colour split, alternating black and grey. Foreground — a picture of an armadillo. Top text: “ English Major ” Bottom text: “ Can’t stand Shakespeare ”]
Submitted by: http://supersmashsarah.tumblr.com/
Via F*ck Yeah English Major Armadillo[Picture: Background — a six piece pie style colour split, alternating black and grey. Foreground — a picture of an armadillo. Top text: “Play 20 questions with other English majors. ‘Is this person from a novel?’ ” Bottom text: “Define novel.”]
Via F*ck Yeah English Major Armadillo[Picture: Background — a six piece pie style colour split, alternating black and grey. Foreground — a picture of an armadillo. Top text: “ [TEACHER SAYS NO SENTENCE FRAGMENTS] ” Bottom text: “ [OVER MY DEAD BODY] ”]
