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Interesting facts about english

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A collection of curiosities about the English language.

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The most common letter in English is "e".

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The most common vowel in English is "e", followed by "a".

a aa

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The most common consonant in English is "r", followed by "t".

r tr

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Every syllable in English must have a vowel (sound). Not all syllables have consonants.

Bur-den

Emp-ty

Ab-hor-rence

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Only two English words in current use end in "-gry". They are

and .

The others are aggry, , gry, , puggry.

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The word(along with its associate "bookkeeping")is the only unhyphenated English word with threeconsecutive double letters.

Other such words, like " ",require a hyphen to be readily readable.

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The word "triskaidekaphobia“means "extreme fear of the number 13".

This superstition is related to"paraskevidekatriaphobia", which means"fear of Friday the 13th".

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More English words begin with the letter "s“than with any other letter.

S

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A preposition is always followed by a noun (ie noun, proper noun, pronoun,noun group, gerund).

on inat for

bynextacross

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A sentence that contains all 26 letters of thealphabet is called a "pangram".

The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog.

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A word formed by joining together parts ofexisting words is called a "blend" or, less commonly, a "portmanteau word").Many new words enter the English languagein this way.Examples are "brunch" (breakfast + lunch);"motel" (motorcar + hotel); and guesstimate" (guess + estimate).Note that blends are not the same as compoundsor compound nouns, which form when two wholewords join together, for example: website,blackboard, darkroom.

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In normal usage, the # symbol has several names, for example: hash, pound sign, number sign.

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In English, the @ symbol is usually called"the at sign" or "the at symbol".

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Some words exist only in plural form, for example:

glasses (spectacles), binoculars, scissors,shears, tongs, gallows, trousers, jeans, pants,pyjamas

(but note that clothing words oftenbecome singular when we use them as modifiers,as in "trouser pocket").

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The shortest complete sentence in Englishis the following. "I am."

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