Fun Facts About The English Language

The English language is a weird and wonderful thing. It’s what we writers rely on to craft our stories, and the way we use it, play with it and manipulate it to create worlds, develop characters and craft our stories is the essence of all that we do.

So to celebrate this collection of 26 letters that allows us to communicate our stories to the world, let’s look at some fun and interesting facts about the English language that you probably never knew…

Enneacontakaienneagon is actually a word! Yes, that’s right, try pronouncing that after a wine or two! It’s meaning is almost as bizarre as the word itself - a shape with ninety-nine sides, who knew?!

What’s the shortest sentence in the English language? I am. How profound!

Can you write a sentence that contains every single letter in the English language? Have a go! If you can, you’ve created a pangram!

Could you guess what the longest word in the English language is? You might be thinking of that rather joyful phrase from a much-loved children’s film. While that is just supercalifragilisticexpialidocious - you’d actually be wrong. The longest word in the dictionary is in fact pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis - unfortunately having a much less lovely meaning as it’s a type of lung disease caused when a person breathes in ash and dust.

Did you know that some words have no meaning? As strange as it sounds some words snuck into the dictionary due to printing errors. The word “dord” lasted eight years before finally being removed !

The English language is ever-evolving, and a new word is added around every 2 hours!

You know those words that you say often but don’t really add any value to your sentence? No? Think for a minute. If you ever start a sentence with “Actually” or pepper your speech with “like” these are known as crutch words as they could be removed without changing the meaning of your sentence.

Write down the word swims. Turn your piece of paper upside down. Pretty cool huh? This is called an ambigram.

Did you know that English is the language all pilots must use when they are flying regardless of where they are from? The rules state they must identify themselves and speak in English while flying.

The word girl initially meant a small boy, or girl. It did not have a specific gender and was used to describe a young person regardless of sex.

The English language is brilliant, historic and fascinating. Do you have any fun facts about the English language? Share them with us here!

Bethany Cadman - bethanycadman.co.uk

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