I am a reader. I love reading, I love books, and I love words. I write songs, poems, and stories, as well, so I actually spend a fairly significant amount of time thinking about words and phrasing and waxing poetic about analogies and metaphors and the like.
Here is a cool list of fun word facts about the English language, and just some words I love. Do you have favorite words, the way some people have favorite or ‘lucky’ numbers?
Here are some interesting word facts!
-A fact I’ve found to be fairly common is that “dreamt” is the only word in the English language that ends in “mt.”
-The word "triskaidekaphobia" means "extreme fear of the number 13". This superstition is related to "paraskevidekatriaphobia", which means "fear of Friday the 13th". Try saying that 3 times fast!
-The longest English word that can be spelled without repeating any letters is 'uncopyrightable’.
-Due to a printing error, there was a word in the English dictionary from 1932 to 1940 which didn’t have a meaning. The word was ‘Dord’ and it became known as ‘ghost word’. (I'd never heard this one before!)
-Some words exist only in plural form, for example: glasses (spectacles), binoculars, scissors, shears, tongs, gallows, trousers, jeans, pants, pajamas (though clothing words often become singular when we use them as modifiers, as in "trouser pocket").
-The word 'checkmate' in chess comes from the Persian phrase 'Shah Mat,' meaning "the king is helpless."
-We pronounce the combination "ough" in 9 different ways, as in the following sentence which 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."
-Approximately one new word is added to the English language every two hours and around 4,000 new words are added to the English dictionary every year.
-This symbol: # is called an octothorpe. Also known as hash, pound sign, and number sign.
-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."
-The word 'testify' was based on men in the Roman court swearing to a statement, made by swearing on their testicles. (I'm not 100% sure on this one. Some sites say yes, some say no, but they seem to agree that the root word for testify is the Latin word testis, which is the Latin word for 'witness' and also was a figurative way of referring to their testicles.)
-According to Oxford English Dictionary research, an ‘x’ was first used to represent a kiss in a 1763 letter written by naturalist Gilbert White.
-‘Sarcasm’ comes from the Greek word ‘sarkazien,’ meaning ‘to tear flesh.’
Words I like because they sound funny:
Flapdoodle - nonsense, a fool (Can be pluralized as flapdoodles!)
Flapjack - more fun of a word than “pancake,” though of course “pancake” does explain what it is a little better. A small cake made of batter in a pan. Life would be easier is more things were named in a way that actually explained what they were. Instead of “shoe," we might say "foot insulator" or something!
Cattywampus - not straight or centered.
Crapulence - when you get sick because you eat or drink too much (is it a real word!)
Gobsmacked - surprised or astonished.
Skullduggery - deception or trickery.
Flabbergasted - to be overcome with surprise or bewilderment
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis - a disease you get from inhaling volcanic dust -- they probably could have simply used the word “disease” here...
Brouhaha - excited public interest, sensation, or discussion; HULLABALOO. (or a really hilarious coffee!)
Kerfuffle - a fuss or commotion.
Onomatopoeia - the formation of a word by imitation of a sound (buzz, cuckoo, meow…).
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