...you can "pitch" an idea in a meeting - you can "pitch" a ball - you can "pitch" something out you no longer require or you can play cricket on a "pitch"........it's a wonder we not allll confused! lol lol lol ...

you can light a fire in a "grate" - you can be "great" - and "great" things can happen..

you can drink thru a '"straw" - or feed animals with "straw"

you can "jockey" for space in a queue - or you can ride a horse and be a "jockey" - 

You can receive a "bill" - you can pay a "bill" - a Pelican and duck - has a "bill" ....you can even be called "Bill" (short for William) lol 

Thank goodness English is my first language;  would hate to try to learn it and I admire migrants who do it so quickly.

As for shorthand;  I still use my Pitmans when I want to write a note to myself and don't want anyone else  to read it. ;)   Getting a bit rusty but still can do it.

I just read this and he highlights the way language and also meanings of words change and disappear. I don't know if others like  the Author Alex McCall Smith he writes other books than the Lady Detective novels and is an entertaining speaker.

"Alexander McCall Smith

Languages
I love the richness of language, as most of us do. But local words die, and are replaced by bland expressions that may be understood internationally yet are devoid of any real texture. Words are debased through excessive use - look what has happened to the word awesome.
In Scotland we have three main languages: English, Scots and Gaelic. Gaelic survives as a living language (with native speakers), but has been very much shouldered out of the way by English. Fortunately it is still being taught and supported by the Scottish Government and various cultural bodies.
I have read that Australian slang - so colourful - is contracting. What a pity. I have several dictionaries of that particular slang, and the expressions it employs are vivid, robust and often very funny.
Here is a poem I have written this evening about hearing Gaelic being spoken not he street in the small harbour town of Tobermory, on the island of Mull. I am often there - when we are in Argyll we go by boat from our house to do the shopping in Tobermory. I was going back to the boat one day and I heard two women talking to one another in Gaelic, a language that is most beautiful to hear. I lingered, and the memory came back to me today. It prompted this poem:
On hearing Gaelic being spoken on the street in Tobermory
The ear is unprepared: the angle of vowels can change as suddenly,
As the sky’s furniture changes here, in the lee of the Atlantic;
English can be heavy, and exact; can limit our freedom,
To speak with wistfulness about things that are vague and liquid,
Things that can only be understood in the light of a very long history,
And of a sense of belonging, being of a place rather than from it.
Each year we lose so many languages – linguistic obituarists
Record their death, write of the last known speaker;
How lonely to be the last one to know the words, to know
What sounds once filled the silences that are now all that remain,
Like the long hiss at the end of a long-playing record,
When the needle remains in the groove, and the music fades away.
The words, like fallen leaves, are swept away; the young man
Cannot tell his girl her eyes are the colour of a certain sort of sea;
She cannot tell him that his skin is smooth like the surface
Of the rock they once could name, that love
Has filled her heart with the fluttering of birds
Whose flight can no longer be believed, nor told."

"I have read that Australian slang - so colourful - is contracting. What a pity." True. Rarely hear Oz slang these days. 

Well, English is a second language for me and once I got over the shock of pronunciation (they of mine, me of theirs) and the spelling (there ain't no rules mait!), it all went splendidly. Grammar (what grammar?) is dead simple, compared to most other Euro lingos at least which makes it much easier. Being a kid helped heaps.

I read avidly with a dictionary by my side and built a formidable vocab as the result. English certainly has a huge dictionary whereas other languages can add nuance by changing the word ending instead.

The trippy examples quoted previously are OK in conversation cause they are in a context of a sentence. What's been doing my head in is crosswords where the answer may be to an obscure meaning of the clue, the SYLC is good at it.

Todays clue "landed" - answer "acred'. Only got it when I filled most of the letters from other clues.

Kopernicus I agree, Nuances are everything in a foreign language a joke in English can be met with a totally blank look if it is not understood and vice versa.

Sometimes to some who speak the language well have a great sense of humour may totally miss the point of a joke.

My French husband had only met my mother a few times so when she came round unexpectedly he came into the room and "Sorry I am shaving the Lawn" My mother said " no my dear the word is mow" his hand immediately went to his moustache and he said indignantly"   " no,no the green stuff outside,I know it is called  the lawn"  complete misunderstanding and seeing their faces glaring at each other I ended up in hysterics.

Oh what is this thing called love.

What's this thing called luv.

...you can wear a "ring" - there is a Circus "ring"  - you can dance in a "ring" - the phone can "ring" - you can "ring" a bell ............

Burning ring of fire after too much curry

Rhyme as in poetry or as in no rhyme or reason but different from rythm which has many meanings . Rythm and blues , the rythm method , get into the rythm of things etc etc .