- The first word spoken on the moon was "okay". (Or not - see comments).
- Seoul, the South Korean capital, just means "the capital" in the Korean language.
- The name of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with.
- 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 (unless you're a biologist (see comments).
- The "you are here" arrow on maps is called an ideo locator.
- The dot over the letter 'i' is called a tittle.
- The symbol on the "pound" key (#) is called an octothorpe.
- The symbol used in many URLs (Web addresses) is called a tilde. (~)
- The word "lethologica" describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want.
- In English, "four" is the only digit that has the same number of letters as its value.
- Q is the only letter in the alphabet that does not appear in the name of any of the United States.
- 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.
- TYPEWRITER, is the longest word that can be made using the letters only one row of the keyboard.
- "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".
- The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat," which means, "the King is dead".
- Only three words have entered English from Czech: polka, pilsner, and robot.
- The sentence "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter in the English language.
- Stewardesses is the longest word typed with only the left hand.
- The most common name in the world is Mohammed.
- The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary is:- pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.
- The only other word with the same amount of letters as it is its plural:- pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconioses.
- The longest non-medical word in the English language is FLOCCINAUCINIHILIPILIFICATION, which means "the act of estimating as worthless".
- The longest one-syllable word in the English language is "screeched."
- The longest place-name still in use is:-'Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturi
pukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwe-nuakit natahu' it is the Maori name of a hill in New Zealand.
- 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".
- The longest word in the Old Testament is "Malhershalahashbaz".
- Mafia in Old Arabic means 'sanctuary'.
- 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.
- Karaoke means 'empty orchestra' in Japanese.
- The first message tapped by Samuel Morse over his invention the telegraph was: "What hath God wraught?"
- The first words spoken by over Alexander Bell over the telephone were: "Watson, please come here. I want you.
- The first words spoken by Thomas Edison over the phonograph were: "Mary had a little lamb."
- "Papaphobia" is the fear of Popes.
- 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.
- The three words in the English language with the letters "uu" are: vacuum, residuum and continuum.
- "Underground" is the only word in English that begins and ends with the letters "und."
- A baby in Florida was named: Truewilllaughinglifebuckyboomermanifestdestiny. His middle name is George James.
- 'Dreamt' is the only English word that ends in the letters 'mt'.
- The word 'Bye' is used in both English and Spanish meaning the same thing.
- "Pogonophobia" is the fear of beards.
- In Chinese, the words crisis and opportunity are the same. (Or not - see comments)
- The infinity character on the keyboard is called a "lemniscate".
- The valediction (thanks Erik) 'good bye' came from God bye which came from God be with you.
- So-long came from the Arabic salaam and the Hebrew shalom.
- The word 'nerd' was first coined by Dr. Seuss in 'If I ran the Zoo'.
- Before Jets, Jet lag was called Boat lag.
- The word "monosyllable" actually has five syllables in it.
- There are no words in the English language that rhyme with month, silver, purple or orange.
- The letter "n" ends all Japanese words not ending in a vowel.
- 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.
- 'Zorro' means 'fox' in Spanish.
- The verb "to cleave" has definitions which are antonyms of each other: to adhere and to separate.
- The verb "sanction" also has definitions which are antonyms: to sponsor and to ban.
- You won’t find a "6" in Cameroon phone numbers--the native language has no sound for "x.
- "The only 15-letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is "uncopyrightable."
- 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.
- Rhythm" and "syzygy" are the longest English words without vowels.
- "Go." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
- The word "set" has more definitions than any other word in the English language.
- There is a word in the English language with only one vowel, which occurs five times: "indivisibility."
- 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?
- 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.
- The letter most in use in the English language is "E" and the letter "Q" is least used.
- "Four" is the only number whose number of letters in the name equals the number.
- This sentence has thirty seven letters in it.
- The word listen contains the same letters as the word silent.
- Monday is the only day of the week with an anagram — dynamo.
Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this over time. 🙂
Related
re: 6. The dot over the letter 'i' is called a tittle.
Is the line in the t called a tattle
(tittle tattle)?
In reference to the plurals of words that end in -is...
The statement did not say that the only word with the same amount of letter as it's plural... it was a two parter... It was referring to the long word that I'm not reposting here. AND the only other word that was THAT long was the plural of THAT word.
How about you read what was posted before you start getting all high and mighty about it. In the end, you are the one that looks like an idiot, not the poster of this blog... WHICH I found to be interesting and fun. Just enjoy learning some trivial information.
Amen!
Wow, I've never seen so many people get so hetup about a few words! I really enjoy reading things like this and that's all it's there for...fun!! Lighten up people, or failing that, get a life 🙂 x
Oh don't fall out! This is, as Anonymous (I'm sure I know you) said, just for fun.
Just remember - “Words are only postage stamps delivering the object for you to unwrap” George Bernard Shaw
Davey - I like it. If it isn't called that, well it should be. Unfortunately I think it's just called a "cross stroke".
So much arguing; it's just that we're all from different parts of the world and have received or are receiving different educations. I learned of North America and South America, with Central America being part of North America, and hadn't heard of Oceania until 1984 and in that it isn't even referring to Australia. (The book I've just recently read, not the year seven years before my birth.)
"Rhythms" is a longer word that contains no vowels.
"Dialogue" has all the vowels in it. And there's the name, Sequoia, though I'm not sure that counts.
The list includes "dreamt" as the only English word ending in "mt". What about "unkempt"?
silver rhymes with river duh...
But "unkempt" ends in "mPt".... and silver does not rhyme with river. At least not where I am from.
Rilver would rhyme with silver.
wow... i'm speechless.
Teacher is saying that the only other word as long as the previous one is its plural! Not that it is the only word the same length as its plural!
Re Rilver - I'm not sure if slang that no one has ever heard of counts.
Re Rhythms - remind me not to play Scrabble with you. 😉
The point was, the only was river would rhyme with silver is if it was rilver... and that's not a word
j/k:
Canada got it's name by pulling letters out of a hat:
See, eh? Enn eh? Dee eh?
if I was ever to rhyme silver in a song, I'd prolly choose the name wilbur, they sound phonetically close, although, like River, not exact.
Nice list Teacher.
I think only 2 people know what the first words on the moon were... They had a pretty tough landing so for all we know it could have been "holy *#%&$!!" Does anyone know if their radio was kept on all the time or did they have to push a button to transmit?
I'd argue that 'silver' and 'pilfer' could be legitimately considered rhymes, as the only real difference is whether the labiodental fricative is voiced (v) or unvoiced (f) - they both occur at the same point of articulation.
A worthy list of language trivia in any case.
Actually the word "rilver" does appear in an online dictionary of slang. Allegedly it means someone with a dirty mind. But I have never seen it in a "proper" dictionary, well not yet anywon. LOL
I love the idea of what they might have said when they landed. ROTFL
As for pilfer and silver - not for a British poet. I shall record them to prove my point.
goldfish don't get pregnant, they lay eggs.
so you don't need a name for something that dosn't exist
Very true. I had meant to update this but forgot. It is now done.
In re: 36. You mean, of course, not including under which also starts with und. That doesn't include words like undaunted, of course, or undanceable. Also, more technical terms such as undae (sand dunes) are not included either. Oh, I almost forgot undecillion (1 followed by 36 or 66 zeroes, depnding which side of the pond you live on).
But other than those, you are quite right. Of course except ... oh, both. Perhaps you should just take that one out of there ...
I don't think you understand - begins and ends with und.
🙂
Subbookkeeper - four doubles!
subbookkeeper - four doubles.
no such word as pronounciation - kick out the redundant "o".
Very good read =) just a few things to note especially if you like scrabble..
#3- First of all, quit your whining about the continents, it's trivial..
And for those who'd like to extend what they have learnt from this cool fact page =)-
#4- Amadous, apodous, decapodous , hazardous, horrendous, iodous, nodous, nonhazardous, palladous, stupendous, tremendous, ultrahazardous, vanadous
#10- Another interesting thing about numbers and their spellings- an anagram of "one plus twelve" is "two plus eleven"
#23- Here are some other 9 letter one syllable words =) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of
_the_longest_English_words_with_one_
syllable
#35- Continuum/s, duumvir/ate/s, duumviri or rs, menstruum/s, *muumuu/s, residuum/s, squush/ed or es or ier or iest or ing or y, triduum/s, ultravacuum/s, vacuum/ed or ing or s, weltanschauung/en
#36- Underfund
#38- Daydreamt, dreamt, outdreamt, redreamt, undreamt
#40- LOL Pognophobia.. Lano and Woodley 😛
#57- Tsktsks and Rythyms are acceptle scrabble words, each 7 letters with no vowels.
Thanks for the read, I always enjoy learning new things, and I hope you have learnt some too =)
It would seem that on further study, I have found some 10 letter monosyllabic words- STRENGTHED, STREYNGTHE, SCHMALTZED, STREIGHTES, STREINGHTS, and STREITCHED.
Also, for anonymous, a town in Australia- WOOLLOOMMOOLOO has 5 successive double letters and a back hook of double letters. =)
Some more nonrepeating letter words-
SUBDERMATOGLYPHIC (17; not found in any dictionary, but occurring in an article in Annals of Dermatology), MISCONJUGATEDLY (15), DERMATOGLYPHICS (15; Stedman's Electronic Medical Dictionary)
^ These and other nonsense double letter words found at http://members.aol.com/gulfhigh2/words4.html another interesting read.
A town in the Blue Mountains of Australia- Faulconbridge has half the alphabet with no letters repeated. Not as impressive as some other place names listed, but 13 is still pretty impressive.
You guys have it wrong about where Canada got its name, but the method was the same ...
It was 3 explorers sitting around a campfire, discussing what to call this new land they had discovered.
The first one said, I think it should have a C, eh?
The second said, Ya, and and N, eh?
The third, And and a D, eh?
😉
"11. Q is the only letter in the alphabet that does not appear in the name of any of the United States."
that's why they invaded iraQ...
"3. The name of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with."
Incorrect, Australia is the name of the country. The continent itself is called Oceania.
Sliver rhymes with river. 🙂
This was fun to read.
Sorry, river rhymes with liver, giver, shiver, but not silver (remember I'm British). I shall record them for you.
Glad you enjoyed! I love some of the stuff people have added.
Go The Blues Brothers... And LOTR!!! =D
Point #54 claims there is no 6 in the Cameroon phone book because there is no "x" sound in the language.
This point is suspect as the "x" sound is not used to represent six in all languages.
Spanish: seises
Dutch: zes
German: sechs
and so on and so forth. Furthermore, many times roman characters are used to spell a word, but with different pronunciation in that local language, example: French for six: six, but pronounced similar to the English "cease" as in cease and desist.
In regard to the pregnant goldfish: In my language (Norwegian) the word 'gravid' simply means 'pregnant' 🙂
Whoa... I enjoyed reading the comments almost as much as I enjoyed the post!
Had to LOL quite a few times...
Well it just shows you - you can have fun with English. 🙂
great list, i found it really interesting.
my only issue with the continent debate is when did Australia become Oceania? no issue with NZ, fiji or the solomons etc being part of it, but a) technically the continent is Australia/Oceania and it was called Australia for at least a couple of centuries. its the only continent that encompasses a single state!
and shakespeare was the first person to use the word 'eye-ball'
the term - the 'upper crust' (upper classes) comes from the tudor preiod. Henry VIII would only ever eat the upper crust from loaves of bread, a practice his court then adopted!
I know Australia isn't a continent, but I thought the name of the continent containing Australia was Australasia. So still beginning and ending with "A".
some other words with all the five vowels are tenacious, modus-operandi, pneumonia, pseudopodia
Dreamt is the only english word that ends in 'mt'
This was a great list of interesting facts! This is great! Thanks!
The name of the continent containing Australia is called 'Oceania', not 'Australasia'.
Also, 'bye' is now used in most languages in the same way as English, including Japanese. And Chinese even writes it in text-speak as '8181', which is pronounced 'ba-yi-ba-yi' (say it fast!).
About the continents argument: Eurafrasia
I mean, if you can't differentiate the Americas, then you have to tie in Europe, Asia, *and* Africa together, as they are all naturally connected.
Great List, I love all these odd facts. I wondered if you wanted to post one I heard a while back. One day my dad told me to "mind my p's and q's" at my aunts house. I said I would, then thought about how I would mind my these constanants... I asked my dad what that meant and he said I knew what he meant. I did know that he was telling me to behave myself. A few weeks later I saw a clip on T.V. that told about bar maids in scotland(I think?) telling the patrons to "Mind thier pints and quarts." I called my dad and told him the meaning of the phrase, then assured him Aunt Cathy and I only had a few.
tough to tell, but could be 'contact', though he does say 'okay'. First word on the moon, from the lunar lander.