- 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
Not true at all...
Hypothesis and Hypotheses? They're the same amount of letters.
North AmericA
South AmericA
There's also the word annelidous for the words that end in -dous
They didn't mean the that it's the only word whose plural has the same ammount of letters.
They meant that the only word that has the same amount of letters as THAT word is ITS plural.
"Good bye" is a valediction, not a salutation, because it's said at leaving instead of greeting.
Wow Erik! I could do with you on the forum. 🙂
Thanks Marimuffin.
Annelidous - Of or pertaining to annelids.
Annelid - relating to or belonging to or characteristic of any worms of the phylum Annelida
Phylum - (biology) the major taxonomic group of animals and plants.
Taxonomy - the practice and science of classification. The word finds its roots in the Greek τάξις, taxis (meaning 'order', 'arrangement') and νόμος, nomos ('law' or 'science').
Hmm. I think I'd better stop now.
Looks like a lot of people in North a
America doesn't know what a continent is. The continent is America. If people from North America thinks they live in a different continent, they are very very very wrong.
Cameroon doesn't have any phone numbers with six because they don't have the 'x' sound?
1. Their native language has no word at all for the number 'six'?
2. 'X' is nothing but the letters k and s put together. And sometimes g and z. But which sound don't they have?
Rhythm and syzygy do have vowels. They have the vowel "y".
The word seoul in korean language does not mean capital. the word for the capital city is su-do. 수도. didnt read the rest of those facts but i imagine there are plenty other mistakes
i stand corrected. the rest of the entries seem well thought out. on a side note to my earlier comment. a korean would only use the word seoul as a term for the capital in a figurative sense, like saying Washington DC is the London of America.
Hi Darklighter
You forgot AUSTRALIA.
Cheers from Downunder
words with antonyms for their definitions are called contranyms! 😀
"Rhythm" and "syzygy" are the longest English words without vowels. -- Only according to the rules of the game Scrabble, which (incorrecly) counts "y" as a consonant all the time. In fact, "y" is normally a vowel, as it clearly is in these 2 words. This "fact" is relevant in getting a high Scrabble score, but in reality both these words most certainly contain the vowel "y". There are true vowel-free words in English, such as "nth".
As far as the continents go, any plate-tetonics scientist will let you know that the Americas are definitely 2 continents, on separate plates that happened to have collided some time ago, joined by a tiny stretch of land (as is Asia and Africa). And, Europe and Asia are 1 continent (Eurasia), not 2. The preponderance of place names that begin and end with the same letter is interesting, but you have to bend scientific fact to the breaking point to claim that all continents begin and end with the same letter. It is amazing to read some of the comments by naive people who are really convinced that whatever they happened to have learned as "facts" about the continents in school must be true, otherwise they've been mistaken all these years, and that just can't be!!!
just a note- i know this is a British blog, and all, but in American english, the double r in "squirrel" is not stressed, making it a single syllable... and making "squirreled" the longest monosyllabic word in *american* english - ten letters as opposed to "screeched" having nine.
useless to the UK readers, but I'm sure that some Americans read this too, due to stumble. =)
And if you're Jonathan Ross it's a "squiwwel". 😉