I'm Not Twisting My Tongue, Only My Words....

> Reasons why the English language is so hard to learn:
>
> 1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
> 2) The farm was used to produce produce.
> 3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
> 4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
> 5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
> 6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
> 7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to
> present the present.
> 8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
> 9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
> 10) I did not object to the object.
> 11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
> 12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
> 13) They were too close to the door to close it.
> 14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
> 15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
> 16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
> 17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
> 18) After a number of injections my jaw got number.
> 19) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
> 20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
> 21) 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
> nor
> ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins
> weren't invented in England nor French fries in France. Sweetmeats are
> candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.
> We take English for granted. But if we explore it 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
> grouse and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't
> the
> plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One
> index,
> 2 indices? 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? Sometimes I
> think
> all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally
> insane.
>
> In what language do people: recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship
> by
> truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?
>
> How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a
> wise guy are opposites?
>
> 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. People, not computers
> invented
> English, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of
> course,
> is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are
> visible,
> but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

If I'm curious about this, what happens to the non-English speakers trying to learn our language for the first time?

Are there other instances where the meaning of words are twisted around?