Facts About the English Language


(1) The word "news" is not the plural of the word 'new.' The word "NEWS" came from the first letters of the words North, East, West and South. This was because information was being gathered from all different directions.

(2) The idiom "it rains cats and dogs" originated in 17th Century England. During heavy downpours of rain, many of these poor animals unfortunately drowned and their bodies would be seen floating in the rain torrents that raced through the streets. The situation gave the appearance that it had literally rained "cats and dogs" and led to the current expression.

(3) The saying "all roads lead to Rome," goes back to the fact that the ancient Romans built an excellent system of roads. This saying means that no matter which road one starts a journey on, he will finally reach Rome if he keeps on traveling. The popular saying also means that all ways or methods of doing something end in the same result: No method is better than another.

(4) The origin of the word "quisling" comes from the name of Major Vidkun Quisling, a Norwegian who collaborated with the Germans during their occupation of Norway. The word "quisling" now means "traitor."

(5) The word "set" has the largest number of definitions in the English Language: (192 definitions according to the Oxford English Dictionary

(6) The study of insects is called entomology, while the study of word origins is called etymology.

(7) "Rhythms" is the longest English word without the normal vowels, a, e, i, o, or u.

(8) No word in the English language rhymes with the words "month, orange, silver, and purple."

(9) A bibliophile is a collector of rare books. A bibliopole is a seller of rare books.

(10) A hamlet is a village without a church and a town is not a city until it has a cathedral.

(11) "Bookkeeper" and "bookkeeping" are the only words in the English language with three consecutive double letters.

(12) "Underground" is the only word in the English language that begins and ends with the letters "und."

(13) The word "queue" is the only word in the English language that is still pronounced the same way when the last four letters are removed.

(14) The word "queueing" is the only English word with five consecutive vowels.

(15) The only three words in the English language that begin with the letters "DW" are Dwarf, Dwell, and Dwindle.

(16) There are only four words in the English language which end in "-dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.

 
kamelhammoud,
Waw! What an interesting topic! Really it is veeeeeeery interesting and useful ... I'm so glad to read such new information God bless your hands for posting these pieces of information Waiting for more

 
kamelhammoud,
Thank you very much indeed. They are very interesting and important facts

 
kamelhammoud, really fantastic but if you pleased I have a question. What do you mean by

 
Flammable and Inflammable mean the same




Here's another interesting word with its origin


The word sandwich that we use today was born in London during the very late hours

one night in 1762 when an English nobleman, John Montagu, the Fourth Earl of

Sandwich (1718-1792), was too busy gambling to stop for a meal even though he

was hungry for some food. The legend goes that he ordered a waiter to bring him

roast-beef between two slices of bread. The Earl was able to continue his gambling

while eating his snack; and from that incident, we have inherited that quick-food

product that we now know as the sandwich. He apparently had the meat put on

slices of bread so he wouldn’t get his fingers greasy while he was playing cards.

 
A..R..W..A

 
What I mean is that you 're not gonna find other words that end in similar sounds; are similar in sound or sound like those words mentioned above

Regards

 
The use of the word "inflammable" which means flammable but thought by some people to mean nonflammable has fallen into disuse because of the confusion and the potential hazard of someone mistaking the prefix "in" for "non."

Regards

 
Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king
from history:
Spades - King David,
Clubs - Alexander the Great,
Hearts - Charlemagne, and
Diamonds - Julius Caesar.


If you were to spell out numbers, you would have to go until One thousand to find the letter "A".
Note : One Hundred "And" One etc. cannot be included because 'AND' is not a number.



Shakespeare invented the word 'assassination' and 'bump'.


Stewardesses is the longest word typed with only the left hand.


The name of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with.


The "sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language.



TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row ! of the keyboard.