Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and beginning April 20th, 2021 (Eastern Time) the Yahoo Answers website will be in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.

What is the sentence in the English language that can be spoken but never written properly?

I was asked that one time and worried with it for awhile. When I was given the answer (finally!), I felt like slapping my head for my ignorance.

Do any of you know the answer? I'll tell you in a little while. But bear in mind, it won't be written properly because it's impossible to do so...

Update:

Hint: The below question, ITSELF, contains the answer to my actual question, ABOVE.

When two people meet on a bridge, what direction does each turn in to avoid too many confrontations?

Update 2:

Second hint: Here is the actual sentence that cannot be written properly, with ONE PLURAL WORD LEFT OUT (indicated by the blank line):

"There are three __________ in the English language."

The word that is omitted from this sentence is WHY this sentence cannot be written properly.

The word(s) referred to are used in my first "hint" sentence.

Update 3:

Thanks for playing, people. The answer is that the following three words (all of which are in my first "hint" sentence) all SOUND THE SAME WHEN PRONOUNCED:

TWO; TO; TOO.

Yet, they are all SPELLED differently, and all mean different things. The fact remains, however, that there ARE THREE OF THEM in the English language... Yet, you cannot place any one of them in that written sentence, "There are three ________ in the English language," because there is only ONE spelling of "two," ONE spelling of "to," and ONE spelling of "too."

When you PRONOUNCE the sentence, using the PLURAL FORM OF ANY of these three words you choose, the listener will not know which "to" (or "two," or "too") you are using... Thus, that sentence CAN be pronounced but CANNOT be written properly.

I am going to give JueCee the 10 points for a brilliant reply, because there ARE three "E's" in the words, "the English language." That's thinking outside the box. Thumbs up, too!

9 Answers

Relevance
  • 1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    I don't know the answer for sure, but this is my guess...

    "There are three "E"s in the english language."

  • 1 decade ago

    What? (That's my shot-in-the-dark answer.)

    Each person turns in the direction of the other person's left (or right). They very well cannot turn into the directions east and west or north and south.

    Is the clue purposely ambiguous in the manner in which it was written? One could rewrite it to make it less ambiguous.

    "When two people meet on a bridge, in what direction does each turn so to avoid too many confrontations?" But that doesn't tell me much.

  • ?
    Lv 4
    5 years ago

    it is using yank government and their strategies of instructing scholars. instructors are unqualified and unconcerned. the government and the lecturers unions have an understand-how, an unstated partnership, that's ruining the futures of babies. Why, government colleges, of course! 12 months after 12 months government colleges spend taxpayer's money attempting to cajole taxpayers that they are definitely doing a stable job. Now we even have government colleges bragging whilst they do an "sufficient" job. yet what approximately government college instructors? properly, like the staff of the l. a. water branch, they seem to wish form "X". government college instructors deliver their babies to non-public colleges in extensive numbers. in certainty, countless years in the past government college instructors led the rustic in the share of babies of contributors of a specialist team sending their babies to non-public college. So do the government college instructors ... and that they don't look to be procuring their very own propaganda. there's a point of lack of understanding in this us of a that the be conscious "remarkable" does not even start to describe. not purely are we producing intense college "graduates" who can not study and comprehend the main complication-free of writings, they have no understand-how of yankee government or our genuine historic previous. those young ones could not even start to tell you the version between a constitutional republic and a democracy. they have no concept of the transformations between the rule of regulation and the rule of adult males. they can't inform you that our founders feared a democracy, nor why a democracy must be feared. they are ignorant as to our subculture, our historic previous and our style of government ... to not point out complication-unfastened math and technology.and then there is economics. Our generic intense college grad has no clue as to how a unfastened business enterprise financial equipment works. He could not write a cohesive paragraph on the regulation of furnish and demand or the version between a income and a income margin. This, of course, makes the highschool grads only lumps of clay waiting to be molded into regardless of their union officers or instructors want them to be.

  • 1 decade ago

    Not sure, but it seems like you omitted the word "order" in your example. Not sure if that was on purpose.

    I can think of many properly spoken sentences that are written properly otherwise:

    Don't tuck your boot laces in. (Proper when spoken)

    Don't tuck in your boot laces. (Proper when written)

    What are you talking about? (Proper when spoken)

    That is something up with which I shall not put.(Just ain't right).

  • How do you think about the answers? You can sign in to vote the answer.
  • 1 decade ago

    I give up. What is it, O knowledgeable one?

  • 1 decade ago

    bears

  • 1 decade ago

    Not sure... but does it have something to do with the 'in to' part?

  • 1 decade ago

    prease

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    tell me now its irritating me

Still have questions? Get your answers by asking now.