13 fun facts about the English language!

The English language is very old and it is one of the most spoken languages in the world. Here are some facts you might not know about this fascinating language.

1. If you were to write out every number name in full (one, two, three, four…), you wouldn’t use a single letter B until you reached one billion.
2. A pangram is a sentence that contains every letter in the language. For example, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”.
3. The longest word in the English language is 45 letters long: “Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.” It is the scientific name for a type of lung disease.
4. A shape with 99 sides would be called an enneacontakaienneagon
5. More people in the world have learned English as a second language than there are native English speakers.
6. Though not commonly used, the day after tomorrow is called “overmorrow.”
7. The most complex word in the English language is “set.” This small word has over 430 definitions and requires a 60,000 word definition that covers 24 pages in the Oxford English Dictionary.
8. The word “whatever” consistently ranks as the most annoying English word.
9. The word “good-bye” is a contraction of “God be with ye (you).”
10. The word “synonym” is one of the few words in the English language that doesn’t have a synonym.
11. The number of words William Shakespeare added to the English language has not been asserted.

Gloomy (something which causes or makes someone feel depressed)

Lonely (sad feeling when you are by yourself)

Fashionable (in fashion/popular currently)

Jaded (to be bored or lacking enthusiasm)

12. English is the third most commonly spoken language in the world (the first and second are Mandarin Chinese and Spanish).
13. The dot above the letters “i” and “j” is called a superscript dot.

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