THE ENGLISH CLUB

THE ENGLISH CLUB

19 de noviembre de 2012

HUMPTY DUMPTY


Humpty Dumpty is a character in an English language nursery rhyme, probably originally a riddle and one of the best known in the English-speaking world. Though not explicitly described, he is typically portrayed as an egg. The first recorded versions of the rhyme date from the early nineteenth century and the tune from 1870 in James William Elliott's National Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Songs. Its origins are obscure and several theories have been advanced to suggest original meanings.

Humpty Dumpty was a colloquial term used in fifteenth century England describing someone who was obese. This has given rise to various, but inaccurate, theories surrounding the identity of Humpty Dumpty. The image of Humpty Dumpty was made famous by the illustrations included in the 'Alice through the looking glass' novel by Lewis Carroll. However, Humpty Dumpty was not a person pilloried in the famous rhyme!

The character of Humpty Dumpty was popularised in the United States by actor George L. Fox (1825–77).
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humpty_Dumpty
http://www.rhymes.org.uk/humpty_dumpty.htm


Lyrics

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again.


2 de noviembre de 2012

THE 14 EIGHT THOUSANDERS

All 14 of the world’s 8,000-meter peaks are located in the Himalaya or the Karakoram ranges in Asia. According to Everestnews.com, only 14 climbers have reached the summits of all 14: Reinhold Messner (Italy) was first, followed by Jerzy Kukuczka (Poland), Ehardt Loretan (Switzerland), Carlos Carsolio (Mexico), Krzysztof Wielicki (Poland), Juan Oiarzabal (Spain), Sergio Martini (Italy), Park Young Seok (Korea), Hang-Gil Um (Korea), Alberto Inurrategui (Spain), Han Wang Yong (Korea), Ed Viesturs (U.S.), Alan Hinkes (British), and Silvio Mondinelli (Italy). I’ve always admired how some of the tallest mountains on Earth stitch even the most beautiful clouds, but I never had the curiosity to research and see which are the biggest mountain peaks, how people call them or exactly how tall they are. For those that don’t know, here is a list with world’s top 14 highest and a few details on each one. 

They’re all eight-thousanders.

Watch the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD6i8ExkIDc

1 de noviembre de 2012

INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT ENGLISH

  • The most common letter in English is "e".
  • The most common vowel in English is "e", followed by "a".
  • The most common consonant in English is "r", followed by "t".
  • Every syllable in English must have a vowel (sound). Not all syllables have consonants. 
  • Only two English words in current use end in "-gry". They are "angry" and "hungry".
  • The word "bookkeeper" (along with its associate "bookkeeping") is the only unhyphenated English word with three consecutive double letters. Other such words, like "sweet-toothed", require a hyphen to be readily readable.
  • The word "triskaidekaphobia" means "fear of Friday the 13th". It also means "superstition about the number thirteen" in general.
  • More English words begin with the letter "s" than with any other letter.
  • A preposition is always followed by a noun (ie noun, proper noun, pronoun, noun group, gerund).
  • The word "uncopyrightable" is the longest English word in normal use that contains no letter more than once.
  • A sentence that contains all 26 letters of the alphabet is called a "pangram".The following sentence contains all 26 letters of the alphabet: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." This sentence is often used to test typewriters or keyboards.
  • The only word in English that ends with the letters "-mt" is "dreamt" (which is a variant spelling of "dreamed") - as well of course as "undreamt" :)
  • A word formed by joining together parts of existing words is called a "blend" (or, less commonly, a "portmanteau word"). Many new words enter the English language in this way. Examples are "brunch" (breakfast + lunch); "motel" (motorcar + hotel); and "guesstimate" (guess + estimate). Note that blends are not the same as compounds or compound nouns, which form when two whole words join together, for example: website, blackboard, darkroom.
  • The word "alphabet" comes from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet: alpha, bēta.
  • The dot over the letter "i" and the letter "j" is called a "superscript dot".
  • In normal usage, the # symbol has several names, for example: hash, pound sign, number sign.
  • In English, the @ symbol is usually called "the at sign" or "the at symbol".
  • Some words exist only in plural form, for example: glasses (spectacles), binoculars, scissors, shears, tongs, gallows, trousers, jeans, pants, pyjamas (but note that clothing words often become singular when we use them as modifiers, as in "trouser pocket").
  • The shortest complete sentence in English is the following. "I am."
  • The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat" meaning "the king is helpless". 
  • We pronounce the combination "ough" in 9 different ways, as in the following sentence which 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."
         http://www.englishclub.com/audio/ough.mp3

  • The longest English word without a true vowel (a, e, i, o or u) is "rhythm".
  • The only planet not named after a god is our own, Earth. The others are, in order from the Sun, Mercury, Venus, [Earth,] Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.
  • There are only 4 English words in common use ending in "-dous": hazardous, horrendous, stupendous, and tremendous.
  • We can find 10 words in the 7-letter word "therein" without rearranging any of its letters: the, there, he, in, rein, her, here, ere, therein, herein.
                                                 ----------------------------------------------
  • There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple
  • English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. 
  • Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.
  • Quicksand works slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. 
  • And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham
  • If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth
  • One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese
  • If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? 
  • In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? 
  • Have noses that run and feet that smell
  • English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all.