Interesting Facts About English Language

Interesting Facts About English

The most common letter in the English language is “e.”

When we talk about English our mind always thinks about Shakespeare, its because of the stories and quotes we learned in our school days, he added a lot of words to the English language.

Some sources say 1,700. Other sources say not so many. But he did coin quite a few words and phrases that are still in use today. Some of his (probable) contributions include: 

• Gloomy
• Lonely
• Fashionable
• Jaded
• Watchdog

The oldest words in English are thousands of years old.

They include personal pronouns and numbers: 

• I
• We
• Two
• Three

There are four words which don’t rhyme with any word, they are as follows:

• Month
• Silver
• Orange
• Purple

What do you mean by “Moment”? For example we use to say “Give me a moment”.

The word “moment” originally meant “1/40th of an hour.” 

Back when people used sundials to tell time‘, the day was divided into solar hours based on the position of the dial. Solar hours were in turn divided into four puncta (quarter-hours), ten minuta and 40 momenta. The actual length of a moment varied depending on the hour, but it was approximately 90 seconds.

The longest word in the English language is neither “antidisestablishmentarianism” nor “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.”

The longest word in a major dictionary is “Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis,” which a lengthy way of describing the lung disease “Silicosis.” Silicosis is caused by inhaling fine sand and ash dust, which irritates the lungs , and causes scarring.

Right now, there are only three words in English that end in gry: 

• Hungry
• Angry
• Hangry

Yes, it’s a “real” word now. I was added to the Oxford ‘online dictionary last year.