Amazing Word Facts

  • The longest one-syllable word in the English language is “screeched.”
  • “Dreamt” is the only English word that ends in the letters “mt”.
  • Almonds are members of the peach family.
  • The symbol on the “pound” key (#) is called an octothorpe.
  • The dot over the letter ‘i’ is called a tittle.
  • Ingrown toenails are hereditary.
  • The word “set” has more definitions than any other word in the English language.
  • “Underground” is the only word in the English language that beginsand ends with the letters “und.”
  • There are only four words in the English language which end in “-dous” — tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
  • 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 is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconioses, its plural.
  • The longest place-name still in use is a New Zealand hill, Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwenuakitnatahu.
  • Los Angeles’s full name is “El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula” and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size, “L.A.”
  • An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.
  • Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
  • Alfred Hitchcock didn’t have a belly button. It was eliminated when he was sewn up after surgery.
  • Telly Savalas and Louis Armstrong died on their birthdays.
  • Donald Duck’s middle name is Fauntleroy.
  • The muzzle of a lion is like a fingerprint – no two lions have the same pattern of whiskers.
  • Steely Dan got their name from a sexual device depicted in the book The Naked Lunch.
  • A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.
  • The Ramses brand condom is named after the great phaoroh Ramses II who fathered over 160 children.
  • There is a seven letter word in the English language that contains ten words without rearranging any of its letters, “therein” — the, there, he, in, rein, her, here, ere, therein, herein.
  • Duelling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.
  • John Larroquette of “Night Court” and “The John Larroquette Show” was the narrator ofThe Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
  • A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
  • It’s impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
  • Cranberries are sorted for ripeness by bouncing them; a fully ripened cranberry can be dribbled like a basketball.
  • The male gypsy moth can “smell” the virgin female gypsy moth from 1.8 miles away. (But does he CALL? NOOOOOO…)
  • The letters KGB stand for Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti.
  • “Stewardesses” is the longest word that can be typed with only the left hand.
  • To “testify” was based on men in the Roman court swearing to a statement made by swearing on their testicles.
  • The combination “ough” can be pronounced in nine different ways. The following sentence contains them all: “A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed.”
  • The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.
  • Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct order, as does arsenious, meaning “containing arsenic.”
  • Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the Australian coat of arms for that reason.

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