The English Language

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) Upon see­ing the tear in the paint­ing I shed a tear.

19) I had to sub­ject the sub­ject to a series of tests.

20) How can I inti­mate this to my most inti­mate friend?

BONUS:

There is a two-letter word that per­haps has more mean­ings than any other two-letter word, and that is “UP.”

It’s easy to under­stand UP, mean­ing toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morn­ing, why do we wake UP? At a meet­ing, why does a topic come UP? Why do we speak UP and why are the offi­cers UP for elec­tion and why is it UP to the sec­re­tary to write UP a report?

We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, pol­ish UP the sil­ver, we warm UP the left­overs and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car. At other times the lit­tle word has real spe­cial mean­ing. Peo­ple stir UP trou­ble, line UP for tick­ets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed UP is special.

And this UP is con­fus­ing: A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP. We open UP a store in the morn­ing but we close it UP at night.

We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP!

To be knowl­edge­able about the proper uses of UP , look the word UP in the dic­tio­nary. In a desk-sized dic­tio­nary, it takes UP almost 1/4^th of the page and can add UP to about thirty def­i­n­i­tions. If you are UP to it, you might try build­ing UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don’t give UP, you may wind UP with a hun­dred or more. When it threat­ens to rain, we say it is cloud­ing UP. When the sun comes out we say it is clear­ing UP.

When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP.
When it doesn’t rain for awhile, things dry UP.

One could go on and on, but I’ll wrap it UP , for now my time is UP , so.….….… Time to shut UP!