What We've Learned From Hollywood

1. Large, loft-style apartments in New York City are well within the price range of most people whether they are employed or not.
2. At least one in a pair of identical twins is born evil.
3. Should you decide to defuse a bomb, don't worry which wire to cut. You will always choose the right one.
4. Most laptop computers are powerful enough to override the communications system of any invading intergalactic alien society.
5. It doesn't matter if you are heavily outnumbered in a fight involving martial arts. Your enemies will all wait patiently and politely to attack you one by one, dancing around in a threatening manner until you have knocked out their predecessors.
6. When you turn out the light to go to bed, everything in your bedroom will still be clearly visible, just a bit bluish.
7. If you are blonde and pretty, it is possible to become a world expert on nuclear fission at the age of 22.
8. Honest and hard working policemen are traditionally gunned down three days before their retirement.
9. Rather than wasting bullets, megalomaniacs prefer to kill their archenemies using complicated machinery involving fuses, pulley systems, deadly gasses, lasers, and man-eating sharks, which will allow their captives at least 20 minutes to escape.
10. During all police investigations, it will be necessary to visit a strip club at least once.
11. All beds have special L-shaped cover sheets that reach up to the armpit level on a woman... but only to waist level on the man lying beside her.
12. All grocery shopping bags contain at least one stick of French bread.
13. it's easy for anyone to land a plane providing there is someone in the control tower to talk you down.
14. Once applied, lipstick will never rub off, even while scuba diving.
15. You're very likely to survive any battle in any war unless you make the mistake of showing someone a picture of your sweetheart back home.
16. Should you wish to pass yourself off as a German or Russian officer, it will not be necessary to speak the language. A German or Russian accent will do. (It used to be an English accent for the German.)
17. The Eiffel Tower can be seen from any window in Paris.
18. A man will show no pain while taking the most ferocious beating, but will wince when a woman tries to clean his wounds.
19. If a large pane of glass is visible, someone will be thrown through it before long.
20. If staying in a haunted house, women should investigate any strange noises in their most revealing underwear.
21. Word processors never display a cursor on screen, but will always say: Enter Password Now.
22. Even when driving down a perfectly straight road, it is necessary to turn the steering wheel vigorously from left to right every few moments. (And don't forget - tires will squeal on any surface, at any speed).
3. All bombs are conveniently fitted with electronic timing devices with large red readouts, so you know exactly when they're going to go off.
24. A detective can only solve a case once he has been suspended from duty on orders from the Mayor.
25. If you decide to start dancing in the street, everyone you meet will know all the steps.
26. Police departments give their officers personality tests to make sure they are deliberately assigned a partner who is their total opposite.
27. When they are alone, all foreign military officers prefer to speak to each other in English.
28. When paying a bill you never have to wait for change.
29. No matter how busy the traffic, you will always find a parking spot outside the place you're headed.
30. If you and your friends are in a cabin in the woods in the dead of night and there's a maniac loose outside... always venture out one at a time to investigate any noise.

You Think English Is Easy?

The bandage was wound around the wound.
The farm was used to produce produce.
The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
We must polish the Polish furniture.
He could lead if he would get the lead out.
The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
I did not object to the object.
The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
They were too close to the door to close it.
The buck does funny things when the does are present.
A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

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, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.