Things you don't understand about English--Let's Talk!

[Wocalich]

Hello, everyone. I'm Wocalich. I'm opening this thread to talk about things that we don't understand about English.

Here's one thing I don't understand:

Olive skin. Olive is either green or black, and neither is possible to have as your skin color. Now, I know that olive skin refers to light brown, tanned skin but it just weirds me out.

What do you have that confuses you about English?

[Legendofgenii]

I think it comes from olive oil colour, which is yellowish.

[Wocalich]

That makes more sense, I guess.

[MerrowBros]

Oversight can mean "supervision" or "a failure to notice something". It's basically its own antonym.

English can be bizarre at times.

[Wocalich]

I only knew the "failure to notice something" side of oversight. That's interesting.

[Legendofgenii]

I guess it’s similar to ‘Oversee’.

I know I’ve come across some weird ones, but I can’t seem to remember any. I’ll pop by whenever I spot one.

I live in England and we have lots of different sayings and phrases for each county that can cause confusion.

I’m originally from the north and we have words like ‘Mardy’ (usually paired with ‘bum’) which you’d call someone who is sulking. - You’re being a mardy bum today.

[Random_Guy]

Native English speaker with a pretty good grasp of English, so I’m just popping in here with:
Antidisestablishmentarianism.
Which is just Establishmentarianism.

[Wocalich]

That's just...what?

[Random_Guy]

It is so godd#mn pointless.
We also have this word: Defenestration.
Defenestration is defined as “The act of throwing someone out of a window.”

[darthmongoose]

Having grown up as a native English speaker, I can tell you, English is the worst and all children in English-speaking countries dread spelling tests. Hell, in the US they have these "spelling bee" things, where being able to spell words correctly is a competitive sport!? That's how terrible and needlessly difficult English spelling is; you'd never have a competition on how to spell words in Spanish because the spellings in that language actually make sense!

We have rules like "i before e except after c!" except that rule is complete rubbish and doesn't apply in plenty of common words like "science" and "forfeit"

[Random_Guy]

I have only ever participated in one spelling bee, and I lost because I couldn't spell "vacuum".
There are so many things in the English language that make zero f#cking sense, but I guess it's my job to know them now and I think I've gotten pretty good at it.

[gmaximin]

I do have one query, all these tv shows and movies with douche and douchebag... etymologically, I’d assume the word comes from the French “douche that means shower, so how did shower manage to become a bad word?

[darthmongoose]

I do have one query, all these tv shows and movies with douche and douchebag... etymologically, I’d assume the word comes from the French “douche that means shower, so how did shower manage to become a bad word?

In French a "douche" is a shower, but in English it's specifically a device for cleaning feminine genitals.

[Wocalich]

Okay, I've never heard of that device

[Random_Guy]

Y'know, I could've lived to a ripe old age and never learned this.

[darthmongoose]

Yes, so as you see, those foil packet thingies are "douchebags". Rather like "bugger" it's one of those words that's frequently used without people realising what it actually means!

[Random_Guy]

Something particularly interesting about our grammar is that "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" is a grammatically correct English sentence.
It has its own Wikipedia page:

Apparently some people needed a godd#mn diagram to figure this out.

[Wocalich]

I think I heard of this one but I'm not even gonna try to understand the structure of it

[Random_Guy]

Okay, so:
(No, you don't have a choice.)
It's using three different meanings of the word "buffalo".
1. The animal.
2. The location.
3. To intimidate or bully.

As a translation into Oh thank god I can read this now:
The sentence is a claim the the bison from the city of Buffalo, who are intimidated or bullied by bison, are themselves intimidating or bullying the bison of the city of Buffalo.

[teacup_creations]

Why do we chop a tree down to only chop it up again.