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Smith, where Jones had had 'had' had had 'had had': 'had had' had had the teacher's approval.

I'd be interested to see comments from people for whom English is a second language as to how understandable the "had had had had" is.

Mike NZ wrote on Dec 30^th, 2013 at 2:57pm:

I'd be interested to see comments from people for whom English is a second language as to how understandable the "had had had had" is.

One of my ESL students, a delightful lady from Sri Lanka, insists that of course she knows how to use it but then qualifies that with, "It's just like parallel parking. I can do it but I don't".

I know, i had a few to many last night. [smiley=ohjez.gif]

I, who took English as a foreign language, understood fully, not?  English is one of the most difficult languages to master, but that is primarily because it is such a conglomeration of other languages.  When one looks in the dictionary at the etymology of words very few of them have an Anglo basis, but you will find a wide variety of Latin, Romance, and Germanic roots, along with others just for fun. 

Jerry

Also throw in words from around the countries that formed the British Empire, like India and Malaysia, to the mix.

And then there are those from Australia and New Zealand, who just plain talk funny!  :D

Jerry wrote,
And then there are those from Australia and New Zealand, who just plain talk funny!

And all those who live around the Globe. [smiley=slowlaugh.gif]

Hoppy.

Callico wrote on Jan 22^nd, 2014 at 8:14am:

And then there are those from Australia and New Zealand, who just plain talk funny!  :D

Interesting article about how an American got to understand how Kiwis talk:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/oddstuff/9646912/This-Americans-got-us-Kiwis-sussed

And there is a series of videos on Youtube so you can learn to speak like a Kiwi too:

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Translations available on request!

Callico wrote on Jan 22^nd, 2014 at 8:14am:

And then there are those from Australia and New Zealand, who just plain talk funny!  :D

And Texas, and Boston, and the most un-understandable....the British.

Place the proper punctuation in this sentence:  She had freckles on her but she was pretty

;)

She had freckles on her but, she was pretty.

( Have I shown myself up now?)  [smiley=bag.gif]

She had freckles on her, but she was pretty.

She had freckles on her, but she was pretty. Comma always before a conjunction. Unless her butt had freckles!

American English is the most difficult of all languages to master due to many if it's words having multiple meanings. Many of these words have an infinite amount of meanings. I will elaborate shortly. I need to brush up on a word (my personal favorite and many Americans favorite as well).