Why oh why is English so confusing..

I remember when I was a kid and someone told me "what's up?", I was like I really didn't know how to answer that! I felt like I knew what it means and I thought maybe it means literally what's up there but I'm not really sure so I didn't answer it. I always always get confused in English.

Hi, Vandana, Holy mackerel! What a discussion. I'm glad I just got a brand spanking new tower for my computer. Now I'm happy as a clam. I just thought I would add my 2 cents and chew the fat for awhile. I looked for my cat but she was a gone goose. My neighbors won the lottery now they're living high on the hog. Well, I think I'll go wet my whistle and then hit the hay.

This is one of the multitude of euphemisms for terms that used to be considered blasphemous, like "heck" for "hell", "grief" for "God" (I don't quite follow that myself), or "goodness gracious" for "God God". A lot of them are ironic, like the fat chance thin chance example you give. No point in trying to think logically, I'm sure your own language, let alone your version of English, has hundreds of similar displacement words for all sorts of things. It took you to point me to the ones in my language, we don't notice them because they are terms we use automatically, and you almost certainly have the same issues. By the way, if someone from your culture spoke of "forbidden love", what would that mean to you? Lash

I learned a new Cumbrian word the other day (Cumbria is in England in case you didn't know) and it's "gammy." I mean, I've used it in the past in another part of England (Lancashire) and we tend to use the word to describe something like a lame leg as in "gammy leg." However, in the Cumbrian context it can just mean you're feeling unwell. Another one I've heard them use a lot is "badly" as in, "I'm not going into work today because I'm feeling badly." One Cumbrian word I use a lot is "cowie" a word that is used whenever I can't remember a name or anything else come to that, "Did you see cowie on the telly the other night..you know, whatsername?" If you weren't confused before I bet you are now!

Sometimes we don't need to think logically about a language. "Just do as what Romes do when in Rome" isn't that the very best way? Understand that when we need to translate that into our own language we had to flip on dictionary a lot to find the correct expression...

Good grief!This is the first time I have come across such a term.I also feel it to be confusing.Another example of such terms is,'pretty hard.'If something is hard,how can it be pretty.And how can pretty things be hard.Sounds self-contradictory.Such usages confuse me either.I don't care.I don't want to be a great scholar of English.My mother tongue serves all purposes for which knowledge of a language is necessary.English is a foreign language that is imposed on us.

I think 'good grief' is a euphemism for 'God's grief' just as the expression 'cor blimey' is a euphemism or contraction for 'God blind me' all the best, urban

Or a bus conductor hurrying a passenger to disembark who calls, "Come on (hurry up) get off." all the best urban

The "Good Grief" thing would be part of the biblical commandment about not taking the Lord's Name in Vain..instead of saying G--,a euphemism ,perhaps beginning with the same letter,would be put in instead.. Devout Christians would have a number of non profane expletives such as that they might use..

Yes vandana "good grief" is a nice coin from English language. It can be used as 'sweet but painful memory'. I can't understand some slang of English language. English speaking people often use slang. We the non-native English speaking people are learning many words of English from the native English speakers. Thanks to them. I can't find the proper alternative word of "Romance" in my language(Bengali). Every language has its special character.

There is plain English, there is overstated English and then there is understated English. These are the unique nuances which make a language intersting. We have some of these in our language Telugu too. Like, "nindukunnadi". Used in the costal regions, though it literally means "has become full", means the opposite, "empty". I agree with you that interaction is a great teacher. The good point here is that it is also fun. Also there are some phrases which lose meaning in translation, like the blessing starting with "My sons". This was used once in my school with disasterously funny result. You know what it becomes when it is translated into Telugu, a street slur.

Those expressions are used in informal chats and one does not find them in print. If you really want to improve, you must listen to BBC or CNN news channels. Or even read the Readers' Digest.

Vandanaji First of all i am happy to see your picture here To us english is certainly funny, and i think our hindi may appear difficult to others, particularly the grammer

That is an idiomatic expressions used by native speakers. There are also some used street words or slang words. The idiomatic expressions are not literally said, it connotes other meaning, like grab a bite: it means to eat something.

Yes, we have a lot of apparently strange phrases were the true grammatical use of the words would be meaningless. These phrases are so commonly used that everyone understands the implied meaning without even thinking about the individual words. Phrases such as "hard luck" or "At sixes and sevens" tend to be treated as valid in the same way that we accept the meaning of a single word without analysing the letters it is composed of. Many of such phrases can be traced back to their origin and therefore be explained, but a vast number of them have been around so long that their original reasons are lost to us forever. I agree that this must be very confusing for someone who learns English as a pure language rather then familiarity from childhood. I usually try to avoid these kind of terms when speaking to a person from another country.

Hello my friend vandana7 Ji, Well, it is very easy to find faults in others, but very equally difficult to hilight one's own. To find out your language, first I should learn your language and then I can tell you if there are no faults/confusions. In english there are different pronounciations for 'BUT/PUT', WHY?. May God bless You and have a great time

Well, there are definitely ways of saying details even in my Italian language (you know, I'm Italian), however, since I am a native speaker, I do not mind. However, I must say that my English language, in these two years of hard work here on Mylot, had improved! This makes me happy! I learned many words, and also some way of saying such as "be in your shoes," or "a whale of time", etc.. Are English idioms, that we, being of the mother tongue, can sometimes deceive us. Only a matter of learning and experience!

for sure,it has become more grieved and more over aiming at some wealth and more importantly it is funny for me.we cant help it,that is how language blossoms

Vandana, I think I can explain that one: We are nominally a Christian country and in the past many Britons were steeped in the language and teaching of the Bible. The greatest grief ever experienced was that of the Saviour on the cross, when He was bearing the sins of all who would believe on Him and of all who had believed on Him in figure in the past. Indeed Isaiah (53:4), prophesying of Him some 700 year previously, wrote "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows". This grief He suffered is good, because it brought about the salvation of all His. Thus the phrase "Good Grief" is one of the many references to the things of God that people, some in complete ignorance of their true meaning, use blasphemously as expletives (This comes under the heading of blasphemy against the Son of Man and can be forgiven - Luke 12:10). One thing about English that's so confusing, of course, is "spelling". I have to tell my foreign friends that English only appears to have an alphabet. In reality our orthography is like Chinese, without the mitigating grace of pictorial representation that might give a clue to their meaning (e.g., the eight mouths representing the eight people saved in Noah's Ark being used to mean "Boat"). One of their favourite examples is "Ghoti": The "gh" is pronounced as in "enough", the "o" is pronounced as in "women" and the the "ti" as in Temptation. The result is more usually spelled "Fish". Whom do you know that's tried to learn Sindhi as an adult (or Hindi, if that's your native language)? Would they confirm that they know of no confusing expressions in your native language? And even if English speakers don't have a problem, others might. Do you use, for instance, as we do, the phrase "He lifted up his eyes" to mean "He looked upwards"? To some natives of South America this might mean "He took his eyes out of their sockets and held them aloft"!

Hi, Yes, English is very funny language. But I enjoy writing in English. There are many words which pronunciation is but the meaning is very different. Sometimes some humor is created by the same words.