(Actually I have 25 oddities here.)
1. “Ough” can be pronounced in eight different ways. The following sentence contains them all: “A rough-coated, dough-faced ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough, coughing and hiccoughing thoughtfully.
2. The two longest words with only one of the six vowels including y are the 15-letter "defenselessness" and "respectlessness."
3. “Forty” is the only number which has its letters in alphabetical order. “One” is the only number with its letters in reverse alphabetical order.
4. "Bookkeeper" is the only word that has three consecutive doubled letters.
5. Despite the assertions of a well-known puzzle, modern English does not have three common words ending in -gry. "Angry" and "hungry" are the only ones.
6. "Antidisestablishmentarianism" listed in the Oxford English Dictionary, was considered the longest English word for quite a long time, but today the medical term "pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis" is usually considered to have the title, despite the fact that it was coined to provide an answer to the question ‘What is the longest English word?’
7. “Dreamt” is the only English word that ends in the letters “mt”.
8. There are many words that feature all five regular vowels in alphabetical order, the commonest being abstemious, adventitious, facetious.
9. The superlatively long word honorificabilitudinitatibus (27 letters) alternates consonants and vowels.
10. “Fickleheaded” and “fiddledeedee” are the longest words consisting only of letters in the first half of the alphabet.
11. "Cwm" (pronounced “koom”, defined as a steep-walled hollow on a hillside) is a rare case of a word used in English in which w is the nucleus vowel, as is crwth (pronounced “krooth”, a type of stringed instrument). Despite their origins in Welsh, they are accepted English words.
12. “Asthma” and “isthmi” are the only six-letter words that begin and end with a vowel and have no other vowels between.
13. The nine-word sequence "I, in, sin, sing, sting, string, staring, starting (or starling), startling" can be formed by successively adding one letter to the previous word.
14. “Underground” and “underfund” are the only words in the English language that begin and end with the letters “und.”
15. “Stewardesses” is the longest word that can be typed with only the left hand.
16. “Almost” is the longest commonly used word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.
17. The longest uncommon word whose letters are in alphabetical order is the eight-letter Aegilops (a grass genus).
18. The longest common single-word palindromes are deified, racecar, repaper, reviver, and rotator.
19. “One thousand” contains the letter "A", but none of the words from one to nine hundred ninety-nine has an "A".
20. “The sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick” is said to be the toughest tongue twister in English.
21. “Rhythms” is the longest English word without the normal vowels, a, e, i, o, or u.
22. Excluding derivatives, there are only two words in English that end -shion and (though many words end in this sound). These are "cushion" and "fashion."
23. “THEREIN” is a seven-letter word that contains thirteen words spelled using consecutive letters: the, he, her, er, here, I, there, ere, rein, re, in, therein, and herein.
24. There is only one common word in English that has five vowels in a row: queueing.
25. "Soupspoons" is the longest word that consists entirely of letters from the second half of alphabet.
Did you like them?
Showing posts with label English. Show all posts
Showing posts with label English. Show all posts
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
English as She is Spoke
The above is the title of a book written in 1855 by Pedro Carolino. He wanted to write an English phrase book for Portuguese students. The problem was...he didn't speak English.
To quote the preface of this book:
"...he didn't own an English-to-Portuguese dictionary. What he did have, though, was a Portuguese-to-French phrasebook and a French-to-English dictionary. The bizarre linguistic train wreck that ensued--published in Paris in 1855 as O Novo Guia da Conversacio, em Portuguez e Inglez, em Duas Partes: The New Guide of the Conversation, in Portuguese and English, in Two Parts--became celebrated as a bizarre masterpiece of unintentional humor, and it went on to be reprinted around the world for the rest of the 19th century, under the title English as She is Spoke."
Here are some samples:
This pen are good for notting.
What news tell me? all hairs dresser are newsmonger. (Insult to a barber)
With a gardener: What you make hither, Francis?
I water this flowers parterre.
Shall i eat some plums soon?
It is not the season yet; but here is some peaches what does ripen at the eye sight.
It delay me to eat some wal nuts-kernels; take care not leave to pass the season.
Be tranquil, i shall throw you any nuts during the shell is green yet.
It's very interesting and was actually used as an authoritative resource for several decades, and then it wasn't. It has been used as an example of tortured English in the decades since and perhaps as a warning to others as the way not to write a phrase book.
To quote the preface of this book:
"...he didn't own an English-to-Portuguese dictionary. What he did have, though, was a Portuguese-to-French phrasebook and a French-to-English dictionary. The bizarre linguistic train wreck that ensued--published in Paris in 1855 as O Novo Guia da Conversacio, em Portuguez e Inglez, em Duas Partes: The New Guide of the Conversation, in Portuguese and English, in Two Parts--became celebrated as a bizarre masterpiece of unintentional humor, and it went on to be reprinted around the world for the rest of the 19th century, under the title English as She is Spoke."
Here are some samples:
This pen are good for notting.
What news tell me? all hairs dresser are newsmonger. (Insult to a barber)
With a gardener: What you make hither, Francis?
I water this flowers parterre.
Shall i eat some plums soon?
It is not the season yet; but here is some peaches what does ripen at the eye sight.
It delay me to eat some wal nuts-kernels; take care not leave to pass the season.
Be tranquil, i shall throw you any nuts during the shell is green yet.
It's very interesting and was actually used as an authoritative resource for several decades, and then it wasn't. It has been used as an example of tortured English in the decades since and perhaps as a warning to others as the way not to write a phrase book.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
13 Thursday Thoughts on the English Language
Some thoughts on the English language (copied from someone who had thoughts on someone else's thoughts).
1. There is no egg in the eggplant, no ham in the hamburger and neither pine nor apple in the pineapple.
2. We sometimes take English for granted. But if we examine its paradoxes we find that quicksand takes you down slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
3. If writers write, how come fingers don't fing?
4. If the plural of tooth is teeth, shouldn't the plural of phone booth be phone beeth?
5. If the teacher taught, why didn't the preacher praught.
6. If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
7. When the stars are out they are visible, but when the lights are out they are invisible.
8. Why is a person who plays the piano called a pianist, but a person who drives a race car not called a racist?
9. Why are wise men and wise guys opposites?
10. Why do overlook and oversee mean opposite things?
11. If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, doesn't it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged, models deposed, tree surgeons debarked and dry cleaners depressed?
12. If you take an Oriental person and spin him around several times,does he become disoriented?
13. If people from Poland are called "Poles," why aren't people from Holland called "Holes?
1. There is no egg in the eggplant, no ham in the hamburger and neither pine nor apple in the pineapple.
2. We sometimes take English for granted. But if we examine its paradoxes we find that quicksand takes you down slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
3. If writers write, how come fingers don't fing?
4. If the plural of tooth is teeth, shouldn't the plural of phone booth be phone beeth?
5. If the teacher taught, why didn't the preacher praught.
6. If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
7. When the stars are out they are visible, but when the lights are out they are invisible.
8. Why is a person who plays the piano called a pianist, but a person who drives a race car not called a racist?
9. Why are wise men and wise guys opposites?
10. Why do overlook and oversee mean opposite things?
11. If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, doesn't it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged, models deposed, tree surgeons debarked and dry cleaners depressed?
12. If you take an Oriental person and spin him around several times,does he become disoriented?
13. If people from Poland are called "Poles," why aren't people from Holland called "Holes?
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