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The
word ‘England’ means land of people. 67 sovereign states use English as their
first language. English is called Lingua
Franca. Lingua Franca is a medium of communication between two people whose
mother tongue is not English. We know that English is an international
language. But it is also called the language of the sky because every pilot has
to speak English in the air.
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The
word ‘Alphabet’ comes from the first two letters of Greek alphabet ‘Alpha’ and
‘Beta’.
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‘Uncopyrightable’
is the longest English word in normal use that contains no letter more than
once.
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‘Orange,
Month, Silver, Angel & Bulb’ have no rhyming words in dictionary.
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Both
the words ‘Listen’ and ‘Silent’ contain the same letters.
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‘Pronunciation’
is the most mispronounced world in English.
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Lexicography
is the art of compiling, editing, and writing dictionaries. The first English
Dictionary was printed on 15th April, 1755. It was Samuel Johnson
who wrote (better to say compile) the first English Dictionary entitled A Dictionary of the English Language. Oxford English Dictionary was first
published in 1888. The first volume contained only the words that start with A
and B.
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‘Bookkeeper’
is the only word in English language with three consecutive double letters.
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‘Angry’
and ‘Hungry’ are the two words that end with ‘gry’. ‘Dreamt’ is the only word
in English that ends with the letters ‘mt’.
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The
following sentence contains all 26 letters of the alphabet:
‘The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.’ A sentence that contains
all 26 letters of the alphabet is called a ‘Pangram’.
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The
dot over the letter ‘i’ and ‘j’ is called a ‘superscript dot’.
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If we
place a comma before the word ‘and’ at the end of a list, this is known as an ‘Oxford
comma’ or a ‘serial comma’. For example: ‘I like coffee, tea, and juice.’
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The
word ‘Checkmate’ in chess means ‘the king is helpless’.
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The
longest English word without a true vowel (a, e, i, o or u) is ‘rhythm’.
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Every
syllable in English must have a vowel or vowel sound.
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‘mate,’
‘eight’ and ‘strait’ make the same sound in pronunciation but completely
different in spelling.
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More
English words begin with the letter ‘S’ than any other letter of the alphabet.
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‘Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis’ is the longest word in English having 45 letters. It is a type of lung disease
caused by inhaling ash and sand dust.
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Ask
your friend to utter the following sentence without any pause: “sixth sick
sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick”. This sentence is called the tough tongued sentence
since almost every one mistakes first time.
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We
know the meaning of the word ‘husband’. Now guess the meaning of the word in
the following sentence: Times are hard
and we have to husband our resources. When we use the word ‘husband’ as
verb, it means to use something carefully and effectively. And another word
‘husbandry’ means farming. In the
sentence "if you school your horse
properly, your riding will look better" school is synonymous to
‘teach’.
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There
are 26 letter, 5 vowels, 21 consonants and 2 semi-vowels (w and y) in the
English language. According to a report by the Global Language Monitor on
January 1, 2014, there are more than 1,000,000 words in English. And the same
report says that about 14 new words are created every day.