English is funny

Ever wonder why did the English make up so many words refering to almost the same things?

Get the idea?

compare English with another widely used language - Mandarin.

In Madarin, logical combinations are used to describe the above names for animals.

1. there is a generic name for an animal. e.g. cattle = "NIU", Horse = "MA" etc

2. genders are expressed as combinations of words. i.e. Male = "GONG", Female = "Mu", Baby = "Xiao" (literally mean "small" or "young"), Meat ="Rou".

Thus, Bull = "Gong Niu", cow = "mu niu", calf = "Xiao niu", Beef = "Niu Rou"

Stallion = "Gong Ma", Mare = "mu ma"....

see the logic?

This can go on for all animals without the need to make up new names for every gender/meat.

For example: just to describe gender (male & female only) for the above 6 animals, English requires 18 different words. (see above table)

Madarin, on the other hand, requires only 8 words.

To describe gender, baby and meat for the above 6 animals, English requires 30 different words.

However, Madarin requires 10 words only.

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Furthermore, there are inconsistencies in English in this regards.

for example:

English doesn't have different words for beef cattle and dairy cattle.

It uses the Mandarin approach, i.e. logical combination.

cattle for meat production = "Beef" + "cattle"

cattle for milk production = "Dairy" + "cattle"

Now, isn't English funny?

and we wondered why the obvious misunderstanding between English speaking Nations and the rest of the world.

Song of the friends

In the cold spring night, they laid down and were getting ready to rest. The wind was still chilly in late september here in the southern hemisphere.

“thats it, my friends. it ends here tonight.” Kay said after a long period of silence. Nobody seemed in the mood of conversation.

“Yeah. its goodbye time. a few more hours to go” said Mo in his usual soft and well mannered voice.
He was always the most gentle among the ten friends, even he was the biggest one.

Jie gave Flowy a head butt in his usual rough boy style. “I won't be missing any of you. I just want to get out of here and be somewhere else much better. This place sucks”

“ I will definitely miss all of you. We are good friends, are we not?” Nacho joined in. He was the youngest and the smallest among them. He was also the subject of Jie's bullying act, most of the time.

“where do you guys want to go after this?” Bonnie asked.

“I want to live in the tropical. I hate the cold. I wish I could go there after this” said Bun.

“Yea. I don't want to come back here and be who I'm again. I want to go further and really enjoy life” Said Kay.

The usually quiet Zul joined in the conversation. “I wanna go to the pampas in Agentina. Heard the girls are amazing with big brown eyes. I like the grass land and blue sky.”

“what about Stub?” asked Bonnie.

“I wanna be a priest and learn religion. This was always what I wanted to do but never took the time. Now I end up here. When all this is over, I will go back and really study the bible” replied Stub with his head down.

Suddenly they heard small Rupert sobbing.
“I don't wanna go. I wanna stay and enjoy whatever time is left. I don't want any change”

"its time. We have to go and we don't have control over this. Lets hope we can go to where we want to go after this.” said Mo in his usual slow and comforting voice.

“Yea. Suck it up. Don't be cry baby. I will go from here and be a cowboy up in the tropical north. Yahoo. I will be sooo rough and tough. Make sure we don't meet because I will have no mercy.” Said Jie loudly.

“Don't act tough. We all know you are scare too”.
Everybody was quiet and the silence was unbearable.

“Let's sing our song for the last time before we depart and go our different ways” Finally Bonnie broke the silence.

So they sang loudly with all they might as to release all the sorrow and fear of the unclear future ahead of them.

Jack took a last drag on his cigarette, felt the smoke passing through his lungs and the familiar sensation of the nicotine.
Larry turned to him and asked, “what the heck with those cattle back there? They have never made so much noise before.”

“Who cares.” replied Jack with a shrug. “they are just stupid beasts with no feelings. In few hours time, they will all be chopped”

“I always have the feeling that they know and understand what's going on around them.” Larry said in a soft voice as if he was talking to himself.

In the yard, the ten friends sang on in the cold spring night.

This is dedicated to the 10 steers who left us on 24th Sept 2008 morning. They had taught us so much. May all of you get to where you wanted to go and don't come back again. So long Special-K, Moe, Bonito, Mbanjie, Rupert, Stubbie, Bundy, Zulu, Flower and Nacho Pop.