Machine Translations

Reasons why computers have such difficulties translating language:

• 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.
• After a number of injections, my jaw got number.
• 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 or 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?  Or, one goose, two geese? So one moose, two meese?
• 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?
• 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.
• How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

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