Amazing Word Facts
The longest one-syllable word in
the English language is "screeched."
"Dreamt" is the only
English word that ends in the letters "mt".
Almonds are members of the peach
family.
The symbol on the "pound"
key (#) is called an octothorpe.
The dot over the letter 'i' is
called a tittle.
Ingrown toenails are hereditary.
The word "set" has more
definitions than any other word in the English language.
"Underground" is the
only word in the English language that beginsand ends with the
letters "und."
There are only four words in the
English language which end in "-dous" -- tremendous,
horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
The longest word in the English
language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.
The only other word with the same
amount of letters is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconioses,
its plural.
The longest place-name still in
use is a New Zealand hill, Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwenuakitnatahu.
Los Angeles's full name is "El
Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula"
and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size, "L.A."
An ostrich's eye is bigger than
its brain.
Tigers have striped skin, not just
striped fur.
Alfred Hitchcock didn't have a
belly button. It was eliminated when he was sewn up after surgery.
Telly Savalas and Louis Armstrong
died on their birthdays.
Donald Duck's middle name is Fauntleroy.
The muzzle of a lion is like a
fingerprint - no two lions have the same pattern of whiskers.
Steely Dan got their name from
a sexual device depicted in the book The Naked Lunch.
A pregnant goldfish is called a
twit.
The Ramses brand condom is named
after the great phaoroh Ramses II who fathered over 160 children.
There is a seven letter word in
the English language that contains ten words without rearranging
any of its letters, "therein" -- the, there, he, in,
rein, her, here, ere, therein, herein.
Duelling is legal in Paraguay as
long as both parties are registered blood donors.
John Larroquette of "Night
Court" and "The John Larroquette Show" was the
narrator of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
A goldfish has a memory span of
three seconds.
It's impossible to sneeze with
your eyes open.
Cranberries are sorted for ripeness
by bouncing them; a fully ripened cranberry can be dribbled like
a basketball.
The male gypsy moth can "smell"
the virgin female gypsy moth from 1.8 miles away. (But does he
CALL? NOOOOOO...)
The letters KGB stand for Komitet
Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti.
"Stewardesses" is the
longest word that can be typed with only the left hand.
To "testify" was based
on men in the Roman court swearing to a statement made by swearing
on their testicles.
The combination "ough"
can be pronounced in nine different ways. The following sentence
contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful
ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling
into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."
The only 15 letter word that can
be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.
Facetious and abstemious contain
all the vowels in the correct order, as does arsenious, meaning
"containing arsenic."
Emus and kangaroos cannot walk
backwards, and are on the Australian coat of arms for that reason.
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