Why can’t a word just mean one thing?
One meaning – no ifs and no buts.
Too many words can meaning two things or more,
Like, for example, nuts.
Nuts is the thing that my dad goes
When he makes that strange burbling noise.
Some people’s nuts are found growing on trees
Like those walnuts of old Uncle Roy’s.
Most of our words are two-timers
Like bogey and bottom and crutch.
When you can’t tell your ass from your donkey
It’s not safe to say very much.
These two-timing words can be trouble.
The double-ups make you quite numb.
What an Englishman might call a hobo
Americans know as a bum.
An Englishman’s bum is quite different
Though they both make polite people frown
And I guess we’d be loath to deny that they both,
On the whole, would prefer to sit down.
So how can a migrant learn English
When it just makes no sense? – or not much.
The best students all come from Holland
Cos English is just Double Dutch.
