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.
