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? 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? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. 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?
Have you noticed that we talk about certain things only when they are absent? Have you ever seen a horsefull carriage or a strapfull gown? Met a sung hero or experienced requited love? Have you ever run into someone who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable? And where are all those people who ARE spring chickens or who would actually hurt a fly?
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.
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Lord, 'tis Thy plenty-dropping hand That soils my land; And giv'st me, for my bushel sown, Twice ten for one; Thou mak'st my teeming hen to lay Her egg each day; Besides my healthful ewes to bear Me twins each year; The while the conduits of my kine Run cream, for wine. All these, and better, Thou dost send Me, to this end, That I should render, for my part, A thankful heart...
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Being born in a duck yard does not matter, if only you are hatched from a swan's egg.
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TIO SMÅ NISSAR:
Midvinternattens köld är svår tio små nissar i djupsnö går. Rävsax gömd under skynke vitt knipsar nisse av på mitt. Livsandarna snabbt för honom tryter snart i eget blod han flyter.
Nio små nissar i midnattstimma traskar fram i månljusstrimma. Ugglan hoar i sitt näste istapp faller från sitt fäste. Nisse spetsas utav tappen tomte ligger död på trappen.
Utanför dörren står gröten och ångar åtta nissars intresse fångar. Under stigande hunger faten de nalkar en stackars tomte på kanten halkar. Han flyter, han kämpar, han svettas, blir blöt men sjunker likväl i kvicksandens gröt.
Många springor stugan har där sju tomtar in sig tar. Katten som bakom dörren ruva slukar nisse med hull och luva. Resterna av tomtehand suger misse bort från tand.
Sex små nissar mot julbord ila snabbt dom uppför bordsben kila. När sista tomten över kanten hasar tappar han greppet och neråt rasar. Faller nedåt likt ett lod mattan färgas röd av tomteblod.
Tomtar fem i väldig iver springer runt ty hungern river. Nisse snubblar på sitt skägg faller rätt på knivens egg. Lilla nisse, stackars saten rinner ut i sillsalaten.
Fyra nissar har festat på sill och nu de törsten sin släcka vill. Mot glöggen de springer i samlad tropp och tar för sig i varsin kopp. Ner faller nisse i glögghett hav likt en skållad mandel, hans skinn faller av.
Tre små tomtar i granen svingar mellan ljus och änglavingar. Nisse sig för nära våga strax han står i ljusan låga. Doftar snart likt en vidbränd stek ångrar då sin ystra lek.
Två små tomtar omkring sig tittar så en smällkaramell de hittar. Nisse ner på den då hoppar men för detta den ej stoppar. I tak, på golv, på gardin med frans finns nu nisses hjärnsubstans.
Husbonn stiger upp i natten för att kasta lite vatten. Under husbonns tunga toffla nisse blir till krämig våffla. Snön ligger vit lite här och var inte en djävla tomte finns kvar.
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She gave up eating pork three years ago, despite her proud pork-loving, half-Cuban heritage, because she was told pigs share the same mental capacity as 3-year-old children. 'My niece was 3 at the time, which is a magical age,' she said, horrified. 'I thought, Oh, my god, it's like eating my niece!' This, then, also put an end to her preferred hangover cure: Egg McMuffins with Canadian bacon, natch, and beer.
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There is a remarkable breakdown of taste and intelligence at Christmas time. Mature, responsible grown men wear neckties made of holly leaves and drink alcoholic beverages with raw egg yolks and cottage cheese in them
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The sky broke like an egg into full sunset and the water caught fire.
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On profit-driven factory farms, veal calves are confined to dark wooden crates so small that they are prevented from lying down or scratching themselves. These creatures feel; they know pain. They suffer pain just as we humans suffer pain. Egg-laying hens are confined to battery cages. Unable to spread their wings, they are reduced to nothing more than an egg-laying machine. . . . The law clearly requires that these poor creatures be stunned and rendered insensitive to pain before [the slaughtering] process begins. Federal law is being ignored. Animal cruelty abounds. It is sickening. It is infuriating. Barbaric treatment of helpless, defenseless creatures must not be tolerated even if these animals are being raised for food—and even more so, more so. Such insensitivity is insidious and can spread and is dangerous. Life must be respected and dealt with humanely in a civilized society.
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The difference between involved and committed can best be explained using a bacon and egg breakfast as an example: The chicken is involved but the pig is committed.
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The vulgar boil, the learned roast, an egg.
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I'm frightened of eggs, worse than frightened, they revolt me. That white round thing without any holes have you ever seen anything more revolting than an egg yolk breaking and spilling its yellow liquid? Blood is jolly, red. But egg yolk is yellow, revolting. I've never tasted it.
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I did toy with the idea of doing a cook-book. The recipes were to be the routine ones: how to make dry toast, instant coffee, hearts of lettuce and brownies. But as an added attraction, at no extra charge, my idea was to put a fried egg on the cover. I think a lot of people who hate literature but love fried eggs would buy it if the price was right.
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I'm youth, I'm joy, I'm a little bird that has broken out of the egg.
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It's funny, to me, the way people refer to childbirth as a miraculous event. A miracle is something that defies nature. Only, childbirth has got to be the most natural thing in the world. Top three anyway. But, on the other hand, when you think about it, there's really no other word that fits. Sperm. Egg. A coincidental meshing of genetic information that will grow something that could write an opera or cook up some Napalm. It blows my mind.
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Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience. A rustling in the leaves drives him away.
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My veins are filled, once a week with a Neapolitan carpet cleaner distilled from the Adriatic and I am as bald as an egg. However I still get around and am mean to cats.
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Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix.
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We can see a thousand miracles around us every day. What is more supernatural than an egg yolk turning into a chicken?
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Today everything is different. I can't even get decent food. Right after I got here I ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce and I got egg...
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His life was one long extravaganza, like living inside a Faberge egg.
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With each egg we eat we imprison a chicken 25 to 32 hours in a cage.
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I don't eat any animals or anything that has to do with animals. No fish or egg or dairy because I personally don't feel it's a good practice to eat anything that might run away from you.
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When you start with a portrait and search for a pure form, a clear volume, through successive eliminations, you arrive inevitably at the egg. Likewise, starting with the egg and following the same process in reverse, one finishes with the portrait.
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It is a well-documented fact that guys will not ask for directions. This is a biological thing. This is why it takes several million sperm cells... to locate a female egg, despite the fact that the egg is, relative to them, the size of Wisconsin.
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A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked.
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The owl of ignorance lays the egg of pride.
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The key to everything is patience. You get the chicken by hatching the egg, not by smashing it.
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One of our defects as a nation is a tendency to use what have been called weasel words. When a weasel sucks eggs the meat is sucked out of the egg. If you use a weasel word after another there is nothing left of the other.
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The egg is back. The egg is back.
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Remember, people will judge you by your actions, not your intentions. You may have a heart of gold -- but so does a hard-boiled egg.
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