-- The longest one-syllable word in the English language are scraunched (10 letters) and strengthed (10 letters).
-- No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple.
-- There are only four words in the English language which end in dous: tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
-- Dreamt is the only English word that ends in the letters mt.
-- Stewardesses and reverberated are the two longest words typed with only the left hand.
-- The dot over the letter i is called a tittle.
-- The combination ough can be pronounced in nine different ways. The following sentence contains them all:
A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed.
-- I am. is the shortest complete sentence in the English language. Alternately, Go! can also be the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
-- The only fifteen-letter-word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.
-- Facetious, abstemious and arsenious contain all the vowels in correct order.
-- The word checkmate in chess comes from the Persian phrase shah mat, which means the king is dead.
-- The sentence the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog uses every letter in the English language.
-- The names of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with: Asia, Africa, America, Antarctica, Europe and Australia.
-- Typewriter is the longest word that can be made using the letters on only one row of the keyboard.
-- The words racecar and kayak are the same whether they are left to right or right to left, called palindrome.
-- The most commonly used letter in the alphabet is E while the least used letter is Q.
-- The oldest word in the English language is town.
-- Bookkeeper and bookkeeping are the only two words in the English language with three consecutive double letters.
-- The word strengths is the longest word in the English language with just one vowel.
-- The past tense for the English word dare is durst.
-- The word testify derived from a time when men were required to swear on their testicles.
-- 1 out of 8 letters written is an E.
-- The expression to knuckle down originated from playing marbles; players used to put their knuckles to the ground for their best shots.
-- The word almost is the longest in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.
-- The most commonly used word in English conversation is I.
-- Skiing is the only word with double I.
-- Angry and hungry are the only words in English ending in -gry.
-- Defenselessness and respectlessness are the two fifteen-letter words with only one of the vowels, E.
-- Rhythms is the longest English word without the normal vowels: a, e, i, o and u.
-- Excluding derivatives (a word formed by derivation), there are only two words in English that end with -shion: cushion and fashion.
-- Twelve words can be formed from the word therein using consecutive letters: the, he, her, er, here, I, there, ere, rein, re, in, and herein.
-- One thousand contains the letter A. None of the words from one (1) to nine hundred ninety-nine (999) has an A.
-- Two words having all the vowels in reverse order: subcontinental and uncomplimentary.
-- The longest English word is a 45-letter word which is the name of a disease: pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.
-- A superlatively long word of twenty-seven (27) letters having thirteen (13) vowels, which alternates consonants and vowels: honorificabilitudinitatibus.
-- There are many tongue twisters but the toughest of them all is: The sixth sick Sheikh's sixth sheep's sick.
-- Underground and underfund are the only words in English that begin and end with the letters und.
-- Euouae, a medieval music term, is the longest word in English that contains only vowels. It is also the word with the most consecutive vowels.
-- Unprosperousness, meaning not wealthy or profitable, is the longest word in English in which each letter is used at least twice.
-- Feedback is the shortest word in English that has the letters A, B, C, D, E and F.
-- Floccinaucinihilipilification is the longest word in English that does not contain letter E.
-- United Arab Emirates, a small country in the Middle East, is made up of alternating vowels and consonants. It is the longest name of a country whose letters do that.
-- Polish, is the only word in the English language that when capitalized is changed from a noun or a verb to a nationality (of the country Poland).
-- Corduroy comes from the French cord du roi or cloth of the king.
-- The slash (/) character is called a virgule or solidus. A URL uses slash characters, not back slash characters.
-- The verb cleave is the only English word with two synonyms which are antonyms of each other: adhere (to hold fast or stick) and separate (to disconnect).
-- The highest scoring word in the English language game of Scrabble is quartzy. This will score 164 points if played across a red triple-word square with the Z on a light blue double-letter square. It will score 162 points if played across two pink double-word squares with the Q (10 points) and Y (4 points) on those squares. Bezique and Cazique are next with a possible 161 points. All three words score an extra 50 points for having seven letters and therefore emptying the letter rack in one go.
-- The English word with the most consonants in a row is latchstring.
-- The word robot was created by Karel Capek. It came from Czech/Slovak robotovat which means to work very hard.
-- The only word that consists of two letters, each used three times is the word deeded.
-- A hamlet is a village without a church and a town is not a city until it has a cathedral.
-- The word karate means empty hand.
-- The word girl appears only once in the Bible.
-- Switching letters is called spoonerism. Example would be saying jag of Flapan instead of flag of Japan.
-- A, H, I, M, O, T, U, V, W, X, and Y are the symmetric capital letters in the Roman alphabet. i, l, o, t, u, v, w and x are the symmetric lower case letters in the Roman alphabet.
-- The v in the name of a court case does not stand for versus but for and (in civil proceedings) or against (in criminal proceedings).
-- The term honeymoon is derived from the Babylonians who declared mead, a honey-flavored wine, the official wedding drink, stipulating that the bride's parents be required to keep the groom supplied with the drink for the month following the wedding, that month became known as the honeymonth, hence our honeymoon.
-- The longest muscle name is the levator labiisuperioris alaeque nasi and Elvis Presley popularized it with his lip motions.
-- The longest word that can be typed using on the right hand is lollipop.
-- Skepticisms is the longest word that can be typed using alternate hands.
-- Alma mater means bountiful mother.
-- The language Malayalam which is spoken in parts of India, is the only language whose name is a palindrome.
-- The words sacrilegious and religion do not share the same etymological root.
-- The phrase sleep tight originated when mattresses were set upon ropes woven through the bed frame. To remedy sagging ropes, one would use a bed key to tighten the rope.
-- Evian spelled backwards is naive.
-- The word denim comes from deNimes, or from Nimes, a place in France.
-- Freelance comes from a knight whose lance was free for hire or not pledged to one master.
-- The term Mayday used for signaling for help after (SOS), it comes from the French term M'aidez which is pronounced may day and means help me.
-- The term devil's advocate comes from the Roman Catholic Church. When deciding if someone should become a saint, a devil's advocate is always appointed to give an alternative view.
-- When two words are combined to form a single word (motor + hotel = motel, breakfast + lunch = brunch), the new word is called portmanteau.
-- Avocado is derived from the Spanish word aguacate which is derived from ahuacatl meaning testicle.
-- AM and PM stand for Ante-Meridian and Post-Meridian, respectively, and AD actually stands for Anno Domini rather than After Death.
-- The phrase rule of thumb is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
-- Lucifer is Latin for light bringer. It is a translation of the Hebrew name for Satan, Halael. Satan means adversary, devil means liar.
-- There is a word in the English language with only one vowel, which occurs six times: indivisibility.
-- The letters H, I, O and X in the Latin alphabet is the only ones that look the same if you turn them upside down or see them from behind.
-- The youngest letters in the English language are j, v and w.
-- The only capital letter in the Roman alphabet with exactly one end point is P.
-- The letter W is the only letter in the alphabet that doesn't have one syllable, it has three.
-- There are only three words in the English language with the letter combination uu: Muumuu, vacuum, and continuum.
-- The first letters of the months July through November, in order, spell the name JASON (July, August, September, October, November).
-- The Old English word for sneeze is fneosan.
-- The word boondocks (a rural area) comes from the Filipino (Tagalog) word bundok, which means mountain.
-- Speak of the devil is short for speak of the Devil and he shall come. It was believed that if you spoke about the Devil it would attract his attention. That's why when your talking about someone and they show up, people say speak of the Devil.
-- The word samba means to rub navels together.
-- The y in signs reading ye olde is properly pronounced with a th sound, not y. The th sound does not exist in Latin, so ancient Roman occupied (present day) England used the rune thorn to represent th sounds. With the advent of the printing press, the character from the Roman alphabet which closest resembled thorn was the lower case y.
-- The word set has more definitions than any other word in the English language.
-- The Sanskrit word for war means desire for more cows.
-- The ampersand (&) is actually a stylized version of the Latin word et meaning and.
-- QANTAS, the name of the Australian national airlines, is a former acronym for Queensland And Northern Territories Air Service.
-- The word byte is a contraction of by eight.
-- The word pixel is a contraction of either picture cell or picture element.
-- The naval rank of admiral is derived from the Arabic phrase amir al bahr which means lord of the sea.
-- In Chinese, the words for crisis and opportunity are the same.
-- The abbreviation for pound lb. comes from the astrological sign Libra meaning balance and symbolized by scales.
-- Sheriff came from Shire Reeve. During early years of monarchial rule in England, each shire (a country in England) had a reeve (a local administrative agent of an Anglo-Saxon king) who was the law for that shire. When the term was brought to the United States, it was shortened to sheriff.
-- The word queueing is the only English word with five consecutive vowels.
-- The word modem is a contraction of the words modulate, demodulate, thus MOdulateDEModulate.
-- The infinity sign is called a lemniscate.
-- A Blue Moon is the second full moon in a calendar month (it is rarely blue).
-- A bibliophile is a collector of rare books. A bibliopole is a seller of rare books.
-- A ghost writer pens an anonymous book.
-- The O when used as a prefix in Irish surnames means descendant of.
-- The ancient Romans built such an excellent system of roads that the saying arose all roads lead to Rome, that is, no matter which road one starts a journey on, he will finally reach Rome if he keeps on traveling. The popular saying came to mean that all ways or methods of doing something end in the same result, no method being better than another.
-- The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.
-- The right side of a boat was called the starboard side due to the fact that the astronavigators used to stand out on the plank (which was on the right side) to get an unobstructed view of the stars. The left side was called the port side because that was the side that you put in on at the port.
-- The side of a hammer is a cheek.
-- The symbol on the pound key (#) is called an octothorpe.
-- The two lines that connect your top lip to the bottom of your nose are known as the philtrum.
-- The white part of your fingernail is called the lunula.
-- The word assassination was invented by William Shakespeare.
-- The word coach is derived from the village of Kocs, Hungary, where coaches were invented and first used.
-- The word news did not come about because it was the plural of new. It came from the first letters of the words North, East, West and South. This was because information was being gathered from all different directions.
-- The world's largest alphabet is Cambodian with 74 letters.
Now, can you still love English with those nerve-wracking information??? You must!!!
Toodles!!!
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