Amazing Language Facts

1.           The first word spoken on the moon was "okay". 

2.           Seoul, the South Korean capital, just means "the capital" in the Korean language.

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

4.           There are only four common words in the English language which end in "-dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous. There's also annelidous, which you probably won't need - ever.

5.           The "you are here" arrow on maps is called an ideo locator.

6.           The dot over the letter 'i' is called a tittle.

7.           The symbol on the "pound" key (#) is called an octothorpe.

8.           The symbol used in many URLs (Web addresses) is called a tilde  (~).

9.           The word "lethologica" describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want.

10.      In English, "four" is the only digit that has the same number of letters as its value.

11.      Q is the only letter in the alphabet that does not appear in the name of any of the United States.

12.      The word "trivia" comes from the Latin "trivium" which is the place where three roads meet, a public square. People would gather and talk about all sorts of matters, most of which were trivial.

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

14.      "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 you're talking about someone and they show up people say "Speak of the Devil".

15.      The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat," which means, "the King is dead".

16.      Only three words have entered English from Czech: polka, pilsner, and robot.

17.      The sentence "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter in the English language.

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

19.      The most common name in the world is Mohammed.

20.      The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary is:- pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.

21.      The only other word with the same amount of letters as it is its plural:- pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconioses.

22.      The longest non-medical word in the English language is FLOCCINAUCINIHILIPILIFICATION, which means "the act of estimating as worthless".

23.      The longest one-syllable word in the English language is "screeched."

24.      The longest place-name still in use is:-'Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturi
pukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwe-nuakit natahu' it is the Maori name of a hill in New Zealand.

25.      The longest place name in the UK is Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, it means The name means: "St Mary's church in the hollow of the white hazel near to the rapid whirlpool and the church of St Tysilio of the red cave".

26.      The longest word in the Old Testament is "Malhershalahashbaz".

27.      Mafia in Old Arabic means 'sanctuary'.

28.      Some long running myths say that a pregnant goldfish is called a prat, twit, twat and twerp. The correct word is actually "gravid"which describes the conditon of a female livebearing fish when carrying young internally.

29.      Karaoke means 'empty orchestra' in Japanese.

30.      The first message tapped by Samuel Morse over his invention the telegraph was: "What hath God wraught?"

31.      The first words spoken by over Alexander Bell over the telephone were: "Watson, please come here. I want you.

32.      The first words spoken by Thomas Edison over the phonograph were: "Mary had a little lamb."

33.      "Papaphobia" is the fear of Popes.

34.      The Academy Award statue is named after a librarian's uncle. One day Margaret Herrick, librarian for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, made a remark that the statue looked like her Uncle Oscar, and the name stuck.

35.      The three words in the English language with the letters "uu" are: vacuum, residuum and continuum.

36.      "Underground" is the only word in English that begins and ends with the letters "und."

37. A baby in Florida was named: Truewilllaughinglifebuckyboomermanifestdestiny. His middle name is George James.

38.      'Dreamt' is the only English word that ends in the letters 'mt'.

39.      The word 'Bye' is used in both English and Spanish meaning the same thing.

40.      "Pogonophobia" is the fear of beards.

41.    In Chinese, the words crisis and opportunity are the same. 

42.      The infinity character on the keyboard is called a "lemniscate".

43.      The valediction 'good bye' came from God bye which came from God be with you.

44.      So-long came from the Arabic salaam and the Hebrew shalom.

45.      The word 'nerd' was first coined by Dr. Seuss in 'If I ran the Zoo'.

46.      Before Jets, Jet lag was called Boat lag.

47.      The word "monosyllable" actually has five syllables in it.

48.      There are no words in the English language that rhyme with month, silver, purple or orange.

49.      The letter "n" ends all Japanese words not ending in a vowel.

50.      It is believed that Shakespeare was 46 around the time that the King James Version of the Bible was written. In Psalms 46, the 46th word from the first word is shake and the 46th word from the last word is spear.

51.      'Zorro' means 'fox' in Spanish.

52.      The verb "to cleave" has definitions which are antonyms of each other: to adhere and to separate.

53.      The verb "sanction" also has definitions which are antonyms: to sponsor and to ban.

54.    You won’t find a "6" in Cameroon phone numbers--the native language has no sound for "x.

55.      "The only 15-letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is "uncopyrightable."

56.  There is a seven-letter word in English that contains eleven words without rearranging any of its letters, "therein": the, there, he, in, rein, her, here, ere, I, therein, herein.

57.    Rhythm" and "syzygy" are the longest English words without vowels.

58.      "Go." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.

59.     The word "set" has more definitions than any other word in the English language.

60.   There is a word in the English language with only one vowel, which occurs five times: "indivisibility."

61.  Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without killing them would burn their houses down - hence the expression "to get fired." I wonder what "To get sacked" refers to?

62.      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.

63.   The letter most in use in the English language is "E" and the letter "Q" is least used.

64.      "Four" is the only number whose number of letters in the name equals the number.

65.      This sentence has thirty seven letters in it.

66.      The word listen contains the same letters as the word silent.

67.  Monday is the only day of the week with an anagram — dynamo.