THE ENGLISH CLUB

THE ENGLISH CLUB

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.
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  • 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. 

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