Wednesday, May 03, 2017

So far....and rambles on the English language

Well, I'm not sure where I'm going on this, but it's going.

There's a mistake on the first repeat of this latest row where I didn't join 2 rings together because I didn't think I needed to. On the next repeat I joined them and liked the effect better, so I joined those rings on all the subsequent repeats. After it was done I sewed in a thread, ran it through both picots and then sewed it on the first side. Then I repeated on the second side and trimmed off the excess thread so it's all nice and snug now. I want to use my colour choices only once in the doily so that it makes a consistent transition. It may end up looking like crap. Or not. That's what happens with designing. You never know how its going to look until it's finished.

On a totally different subject, we put in a new counter and had to trim off some bits close to the wall, which the instructions said to do with a router. Problem is, the size of the router puts the cutting blade 3 inches out from the wall and the bit that needs trimming is 1 inch from the wall. Grrrr!

They make angle drills so I went looking for an angle router. A standard router looks like this:
I was looking for something that looked like this:

What kept showing up were things like this:

No wonder people who don't speak English have such a hard time learning the language. Two totally different objects, one a tool for cutting wood, the other a device for connecting networks, and yet they are spelled and pronounced exactly the same way.

I can understand when people confuse the contraction they're, meaning they are, with their, denoting ownership and there, meaning location, since they all sound the same. Learning English as a second language must drive people up the wall. (and of course the idioms like "drive people up the wall" must confuse things even more)

All languages have rules, but English has exceptions to the rules which change from time to time. Like I before E except after C, except in words like neighbour and weigh.

English really is a crazy language.

To make things even worse, is the poor grammar and poor diction which makes even native English speakers massacre the language. A personal peeve are the hundreds of people who say axed instead of asked. I always want to interject an inquire if the person needed stitches.

O the vagaries of language, makes you think, doesn't it.

4 comments:

God's Kid said...

Your tatting looks fabulous!!! I love the design!!!!! :)
I understand your frustration with finding things, but with the internet I type in tatting and end up with lots of tattoos constantly.
As for the English language, I think the biggest problem is that it is actually made up from so many other languages that it is almost impossible to know it all well. Just my thought.

muskaan said...

The design, accentuated by your colour choice, looks like ripples moving out from the central pool ! Eager to see where they go :-)
(I use the English spellings from across the pond - that's what I was taught growing up, even though 'colour' has a red line for correction ;-P)

English is quite logical in some word/sentence constructions, and totally illogical in others - especially in case of pronounciation (there comes the red line again ;-P)

I simply rationalise that language should keep evolving and integrating if it is to survive, which English does pretty well. So, as long as communication is not hampered, we'll live with the discrepancies.

Very interesting post ;-)

Madtatter80 said...

beautiful work and colors and glad to see your attempts to keep the language true, I live in the south and in some places, I need a translator. The sad part is that I consider myself poor in English :)

Margarets designer cards said...

Beautiful design and colours
English is one language that even those who speak it find it hard, and now with text words coming into everyday language
They don't teach grammar here in the UK, my grand daughters gamer is bad, I have tried to teach her but it's like taking to a brick wall, they don't teach when to use comas and full stoos, to read a sentence that does not have comas is sometimes impossible unless you take a deep breath before you start. Spelling and mine is not the best, but when reading English what many people don't realise that over the pond that some words are spelt differently but are the same, jewellery and colour are two examples.
No wonder people who try to learn the language have many problems with even those who are brought up with it have problems.