Curiosities about English language

1. It is the only major speaking language with no academy to lead or guide it as Real Academia with Spanish language or L’Académie Françaises with French language.
2. There are around 1 billion and a half learning English in all the world and it is increasing, maybe 2 billion.
3. More or less 90% of its most common words are from germanic origin.
4. However, since the 12th century most of the words introduced in English language have Latin origin.
5. Noah Webster is the responsible for the difference between American and British language.
6. The word “uncopyrightable” is the longest English word in normal use that contains no letter more than once.
7. The following sentence contains seven identical words in a row and still makes sense. “It is true for all that that that that that that that refers to is not the same that that that that refers to.” (= It is true for all that, that that “that” which that “that” refers to is not the same “that” which that “that” refers to.)
8. The shortest complete sentence in English is the following. “I am.”
9. A word formed by joining together parts of existing words is called a “blend”. Many new words enter the English language in this way. Examples are “brunch” (breakfast + lunch); “motel” (motorcar + hotel); and “guesstimate” (guess + estimate). Note that blends are not the same as compounds or compound nouns, which form when two whole words join together, for example: website, blackboard, darkroom.
10. Only two English words in current use end in “-gry”. They are “angry” and “hungry”.
11. A growlery is a place you like to retire to when you’re unwell or in a bad mood. It was coined by Charles Dickens in Bleak House (1853).
12. There was no word for the color orange in English until about 450 years ago.
13. The most common vowel in English is “e” and the most used consonant is “r”, followed by “t”. And if we look at just the first letter of a word, the most common is “s”.
14. English actually originates from what is now called north west Germany and the Netherlands.
15. About 4,000 words are added to the dictionary each year.
16. The two most common words in English are I and you.
17. The English language is said to be one of the happiest languages in the world – oh, and the word ‘happy’ is used 3 times more often than the word ‘sad’!
18. 1/4 of the world’s population speaks at least some English.
19. There are 24 different dialects of English in the US
20. The word ‘Goodbye’ originally comes from an Old English phrase meaning ‘god be with you’.
21. The first English dictionary was written in 1755.
22. ‘Pronunciation’ is the word which is most mispronounced in the English language!
23. ‘Queueing’ is the only word with five consecutive vowels (five vowels in a row). This is a great word to use when you play hangman!

24. English is the official language of the sky! It doesn’t matter which country they are from, all pilots speak in English on international flights.

25. ‘Pronunciation’ is the word which is most mispronounced in the English language!