Amazing facts about English language
Here are some interesting facts about the English language ¹ ² ³ ⁴:
- Over 840 million people speak English as a first or second language, making it the second most spoken language after Mandarin.
- "Go!" is the shortest grammatically correct sentence in English.
- The original name for butterfly was flutterby.
- About 4,000 words are added to the dictionary each year.
- The two most common words in English are "I" and "you."
- 11% of the English language is just the letter "E."
- The English language is considered to be one of the happiest languages in the world, and the word "happy" is used three times more often than the word "sad."
- One-quarter of the world’s population speaks at least some English.
- The US doesn’t have an official language.
- It is the only major language that doesn’t have any organization guiding it.
- The most common adjective used in English is “good.”
- The most commonly used noun is “time.”
- The word “set” has the highest number of definitions.
- Month, orange, silver and purple do not rhyme with any other word.
- The English language contains a lot of contronyms, which are words that can have contradictory meanings depending on context.
- Over 80% of the information stored on computers worldwide is in English.
- Words that are used to fill in time when speaking, such as “like” or “basically,” are called crutch words.
- English is the official language of 67 countries.
- 90% of English text consists of just 1,000 words.
- There are 24 different dialects of English in the U.S.
- The word "lol" was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2011.
- The word “Goodbye” originally comes from an Old English phrase meaning “god be with you.”
- Etymologically, Great Britain means “great land of the tattooed.”
- There are seven ways to spell the sound "ee" in English.
- Many English words have changed their meaning over time.
- The first English dictionary was written in 1755.
- The oldest English word tha!t is still in use is “town.”
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