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Language Interesting Facts

Starter: Watty Posted: 18 years ago Views: 1.3K
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#1884456
Lvl 22
Well i found em interesting anyhow...

* The first word spoken on the moon was "okay."

* Seoul, the South Korean capital, just means "the capital" in the Korean language

* The name of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with

* The "you are here" arrow on maps is called an ideo locator

* The word "lethologica" describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want

* In English, "four" is the only digit that has the same number of letters as its value

* Q is the only letter in the alphabet that does not appear in the name of any of the United States

* The word "trivia" comes from the Latin "trivium" which is the place where three roads meet, a public square. People would gather and talk about all sorts of matters, most of which were trivial

* TYPEWRITER, is the longest word that can be made using the letters only one row of the keyboard

* "Speak of the Devil" is short for "Speak of the Devil and he shall come". It was believed that if you spoke about the Devil it would attract his attention. That's why when you're talking about someone and they show up people say "Speak of the Devil"

* The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat," which means, "the King is dead"

* The sentence "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter in the English language

* The only 15-letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.

* Canada is an Indian word meaning "Big Village"

* Stewardesses is the longest word typed with only the left hand
* The most common name in the world is Mohammed

* The longest non-medical word in the English language is FLOCCINAUCINIHILIPILIFICATION, which means "the act of estimating as worthless".

* Mafia in Old Arabic means 'sanctuary.'

* The longest word in the Old Testament is "Malhershalahashbaz."

* Karoke means 'empty orchestra' in Japanese.

* The first message tapped by Samuel Morse over his invention the telegraph was: "What hath God wrought?"

* The first words spoken by over Alexander Bell over the telephone were: "Watson, please come here. I want you."

* Papaphobia is the fear of Popes

* The Academy Award statue is named after a librarian's uncle. One day Margaret Herrick, librarian for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, made a remark that the statue looked like her Uncle Oscar, and the name stuck.

* The first words spoken by Thomas Edison over the phonograph were: "Mary had a little lamb."

* The three words in the English language with the letters "uu" are: vacuum, residuum and continuum.

* A baby in Florida was named: Truewilllaughinglifebuckyboomermanifestdestiny. His middle name is George James

* 'Dreamt' is the only English word that ends in the letters 'mt'

* There are only four words in the English language which end in '-dous': tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous

* The word 'Bye' is used in both English and Spanish meaning the same thing

* Pogonophobia: The fear of beards

* In Chinese, the words crisis and opportunity are the same

* The infinity character on the keyboard is called a "lemniscate"

* Good bye came from God bye which came from God be with you. So-long came from the Arabic salaam and the Hebrew shalom

* The word 'nerd' was first coined by Dr. Seuss in 'If I ran the Zoo'

* before Jets, Jet lag was called Boat lag

* The word "monosyllable" actually has five syllables in it

* There are no words in the English language that rhyme with silver and orange

* The letter "n" ends all Japanese words not ending in a vowel.

* It is believed that Shakespeare was 46 around the time that the King James Version of the Bible was written. In Psalms 46, the 46th word from the first word is shake and the 46th word from the last word is spear.

* 'Zorro' means 'fox' in Spanish

* You won’t find a "6" in Cameroon phone numbers--the native language has no sound for "x."

* The only 15-letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is "uncopyrightable."

* Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without killing them would burn their houses down--hence the expression "to get fired."
* This post has been modified : 18 years ago
#1884457
Some interesting facts, thanks. =)
* This post has been modified : 18 years ago
#1884458
Quote:
* The word 'Bye' is used in both English and Spanish meaning the same thing



thats news to me
* This post has been modified : 18 years ago
#1884459
Lvl 13
[reply=]
* Canada is an Indian word meaning "Big Village"
[/reply]

to be correct "Kanata" is Indian for "Big Village" or just "village". however those wacky European explorers either couldn't understand the Natives or couldn't pronounce "Kanata" properly and said it as "Canada"

Nevertheless interesting facts
* This post has been modified : 18 years ago
#1884460
Lvl 14
Quote:
Originally posted by Watty


* The most common name in the world is Mohammed



i thought that was "chako manimalaparampil"

Quote:
Originally posted by Watty


* Papaphobia is the fear of Popes



at least they dont meet one that often

Quote:
Originally posted by Watty


* In Chinese, the words crisis and opportunity are the same



thats actually very interesting.
* This post has been modified : 18 years ago
#1884461
Quote:
Originally posted by Watty



* The name of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with



In English i guess
* This post has been modified : 18 years ago
#1884462
Lvl 12
Quote:
* The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat," which means, "the King is dead"


That's the way it's said in Serbian as well. Funny that, we were never occupied by Persian. Turks, Austrians, Germans, Hungarians yes, which is where we get alot of our words, but never Persians.
* This post has been modified : 18 years ago
#1884463
Lvl 17
These are funny

But many of them apply to english only...
* This post has been modified : 18 years ago
#1884464
Lvl 22
Well im English so thats all that matters
* This post has been modified : 18 years ago
#1884465
Lvl 9
Typical French, they have different keyboard layout, so cannot spell typewriter on top line.
I am English but live there. It takes a lot of getting used to after using QWERTY keyboard !!!
* This post has been modified : 18 years ago
#1884466
Lvl 22
Well the French cant be seen to be doing anything that fits in with the rest of the world.
* This post has been modified : 18 years ago
#1884467
Lvl 23
"The first words spoken by over Alexander Bell over the telephone were: "Watson, please come here. I want you."



Good post watty (beer)
* This post has been modified : 18 years ago
#1884468
Lvl 10
that's quite interesting, thanks!
* This post has been modified : 18 years ago
#1884469
Lvl 15
man i knew almost all of these things...
* This post has been modified : 18 years ago
#1884470
Lvl 10
Quote:
Originally posted by Rictor

Quote:
* The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat," which means, "the King is dead"


That's the way it's said in Serbian as well. Funny that, we were never occupied by Persian. Turks, Austrians, Germans, Hungarians yes, which is where we get alot of our words, but never Persians.


The Russian word for chess is "shahmati"

Some nice facts thanks
* This post has been modified : 18 years ago
#1884471
Lvl 25
Some interesting facts there. Thanks from taking time out from organising your cornflake collection to inform us
* This post has been modified : 18 years ago
#1884472
Lvl 22
Quote:
Originally posted by TickLer

Some interesting facts there. Thanks from taking time out from organising your cornflake collection to inform us


yeah, some bastards been eating em
* This post has been modified : 18 years ago
#1884473
Lvl 25
Quote:
Originally posted by Watty

[reply=TickLer]
Some interesting facts there. Thanks from taking time out from organising your cornflake collection to inform us


yeah, some bastards been eating em
[/reply]

sorry, I didn't eat them , I was trying to do a jigsaw of the chicken
* This post has been modified : 18 years ago
#1884474
Lvl 18
Quote:
* The name of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with


Well, except for North America and South America.

Quote:
* The sentence "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter in the English language

* The only 15-letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.

* Canada is an Indian word meaning "Big Village"


Quote:
* You won’t find a "6" in Cameroon phone numbers--the native language has no sound for "x."

* The only 15-letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is "uncopyrightable."

* Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without killing them would burn their houses down--hence the expression "to get fired."


Any facts regarding repeating facts?
* This post has been modified : 18 years ago
#1884475
Lvl 9
That's a cool posting - just the sort of thing I really enjoy; thanks Watty!

Just one thing though... You repeated one of the facts:

* The only 15-letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is "uncopyrightable."

[Edit: Just noticed that TheZodiac already pointed that out... Duh. Sorry for the repeat. )
* This post has been modified : 18 years ago
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