The English Language
According to Ethnologue, the English Language is spoken in 101 countries, with 335 million speaking it as their first language. An average English speaker will normally take their language for granted, not knowing that there are so many interesting and lesser-known facts. Doesn’t it feel great if you know certain things that are not familiar to many people? Let’s look at some examples of the more obscure facts about the English language.
English Language Obscure Facts: How many do you know?
- The small part of the wall between two windows is termed as interfenestration.
- The part of your back that you cannot reach to scratch, is called acnestis, which came from a Greek term for a cheese grater.
- In Latin, the infinity symbol means “to decorate with ribbons” and the right English term for it is lemniscate.
- We all know what déjà-vu means. But did you know that it has an opposite? It’s called jamais-vu, which is an odd feeling that something seemingly very familiar is in fact totally new.
- In Modern English, the longest word without true vowels is rhythms.
- Ombrifuge is the term to use for any shelter you can find when the weather turns bad. If the weather looks likely to improve but doesn’t, you’d say that the weather flenches.
- “E” is the most commonly used letter in English while most words in English start with the letter “S.”
- Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is the longest English word with 45 letters. If you’ve been inhaling sand dust and ash for a long time, you might contract this lung disease.
- Purple, silver, orange and month do not have any other English words that rhyme with them. Incidentally, about 450 years ago, there was no name for the colour “orange” in English.
- “Sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick” is the most difficult tongue-twister in English.
- There are 615,000 entries in the Oxford English Dictionary. Out of them only four end in dous: tremendous, stupendous, horrendous and hazardous
These are just some of the many interesting things about the English language. There’s more and if you need documents translated into English, make sure that you hire a professional language service provider to ensure that the right terms and nuances are incorporated into the translation.
