Amazing facts about English Language - (25/01/2015) # English words I, we, two and three are among the most ancient, from thousands of years. # The longest common English word without vowels is rhythms. # A new word in English is created every 98 minutes. # The word bride comes from an old proto-germanic word meaning to cook. # The word queue is pronounced the same way when the last 4 letters are removed. # 90% of everything written in English uses just 1,000 words. # There are more English words beginning with the letter s than with any other letter. # Nigeria has more English speakers than the United Kingdom. # Until the 19th century the English word for actors was hypocrites. # The shortest complete sentence in the English language is Go. # Phrases in English such aslong time no see, no go, and no can do come from literal translations of Chinese phrases. # Only two English words in current use end in -gry. They are angry and hungry. # 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 QWERTY keyboard gains its name from the fact that its first 6 letter keys are Q, W, E, R, T and Y. On early typewriters the keys were arranged in such a way as to minimize the clashing of the mechanical rods that carried the letters. # The chess term “checkmate” comes from a 14th century Arabic phrase, “shah mat”, which means “the king is helpless”. # English is the third most commonly spoken language in the world (the first and second are Mandarin Chinese and Spanish). # The closest languages to English are Dutch and West Flemish. # “I” is the oldest word in the English language. # “Almost” is one of the longest English words to have all its letters in alphabetical order. # Most English grammar and spelling follow the standardized rules set out in Dr Johnson’s Dictionary, which was published in 1755. # ‘Bookkeeper and bookkeeping are the only 2 words in the English language with three consecutive double letters.
Posted on: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 18:51:16 +0000
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