1 billion people speak English. That's 1 in every 7 on earth.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
80% of information stored on all computers in the world is in English.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
English words "I", "we", "two" and "three" are among
the most ancient, from thousands of years.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
The longest
common English word
without vowels
is "rhythms".
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
A new word in English is created every 98 minutes.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
89%
of people in Sweden speak English.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
The word "bride" comes from an old proto-germanic word meaning "to cook".
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
The word "queue" is pronounced the same way when the last 4 letters are removed.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
The word "mortgage" comes from a French word that means "death contract".
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
The concept behind the word "cool" might come from the African word "itutu", brought to America by slavery.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
90% of everything written in English uses just 1,000 words.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
"Time"
is the most
commonly used noun
in English.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
There are more English words beginning with the letter "s" than with any other letter.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
Nigeria has
more English speakers than the United Kingdom.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
Screeched
is the longest English word with one syllable.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
There are 24 different dialects of English in the US.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
Until the 19th century, the English word for actors was "hypocrites."
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
The shortest
complete sentence in
the English language
is "Go".
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
Phrases in English such as "long time no see", "no go", and "no can do" come from literal translations of Chinese phrases.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
"LOL" was formally recognized in 2011's update of the Oxford English Dictionary.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
"IRONIC"
is the most commonly
misused word in English
says Dictionary.com.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
The day
after tomorrow
is called
"Overmorrow."
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
Today's British accent first appeared among London's upper class around the time of the American Revolution. Before that, the British accent was similar to that of Americans.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
80%
of all written paragraphs in English feature the word "the."
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
Bald Eagles are so named because "balde" is an Old English word meaning "white."
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
Harry Potter books were translated from British to American English.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
The verb "unfriend" dates back to 1659. It existed even earlier as a noun, as far back as 1275.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
Understanding English actually hurts professional players of English scrabble. Some of the world's best Scrabble players are Thai and can't speak English.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
The words 'idiot,' 'imbecile,' and 'moron' were originally medical categories for intellectual disability.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
Dr. Seuss was the first to publish the word "nerd."
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
The phrase ‘Time Person of the Year' contains the first, second and third most commonly used nouns in English, in order.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
"Hello" didn't become a greeting until the telephone arrived.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
"Dreamt" and its derivatives are the only common English words that end in "mt."
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
Only one word in all of English has an X, Y, and Z in order: "Hydroxyzine."
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
The only English word with three "Y" is "syzygy," which happens to describe the alignment of 3 celestial bodies in a straight line.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
The word "OK" originated in 1839 when a newspaper used it as a funny abbreviation of "oll korrect."
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
The English word "Callipygian" means having a beautiful ass.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
The sole term in English to begin with "tm" is "Tmesis," the insertion of words between a compound phrase, as in "what-so-ever" inserted in the middle of "whatever."
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
Muscle comes from the Latin musculus, which means "little mouse," because a flexed muscle was thought to resemble a mouse.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
"Police police Police police police police Police police." is a valid sentence, since "police" is both a noun and a verb.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
By the age of 20, a native English-speaking American knows 42,000 dictionary words.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
The chemical name for titin, the world's largest known protein, is 189,819 letters long.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
The word ambisinistrous is the opposite of ambidextrous; it means ‘no good with either hand'.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
‘Bitch the pot' was 19th-century slang for ‘pour the tea'.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
"Rhinorrhea" is the medical condition otherwise known as a "runny nose."
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
The word "rooster" was favored in the U.S. as a puritan alternative to "cock" after it had acquired the secondary sense "penis."
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
Noah Webster learned 26 languages, including Anglo-Saxon and Sanskrit, in the process of writing "An American Dictionary of the English Language."
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
Charles Boycott, an English land agent, was so hated by the community he became a verb.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
"Goodbye" is a contraction of "God be with ye."
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
The phrase 'crocodile tears' refers to a medieval belief that crocodiles shed tears of sadness when killing and consuming their prey.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
September is the ninth month and the only month with the same number of letters in its name in English as the number of the month.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
Horse-eating is called Hippophagy.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
'Flabbergasted' was first recorded in a 1772 list of new words alongside 'bored'.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
The names of the English rivers Avon, Axe, Esk, Exe and Ouse all mean ‘river' or ‘water' in various ancient languages.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
The average active vocabulary of an adult English speaker is of around 20,000 words.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
The term "Hippie" is derived from the term "Hipster," which described jazz fans in the 1940's. Hipsters were known for pot smoking and sarcasm.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
The word "Britain" is derived from "Pretain" meaning "painted", originally because the Britons had tattoos.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
The term "sniper" comes from how hard it is to shoot the snipe bird.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
Jesus' name translated from Hebrew to English would be 'Joshua'. We get the name 'Jesus' by translating the Hebrew name to Greek to Latin to English.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
Yawning and stretching at the same time is called "pandiculating."
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
The 1989 article that proposed the acronym LOL also suggested using ‘H' to mean ‘Huh?'
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
The word "profane" comes from the Latin "profanus," meaning "outside the temple".
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
The old word for a kiss on the hand is "baisemain."
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
The word "quickie", which has sexual connotations today, began as a 1920s term for a film produced over the course of a mere two weeks.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
The word "cleavage" comes from geology. It refers to a separation between rocks or crystals. American movie censors adopted the term as a euphemism in 1940s.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
"Mouse potato" is someone who spends a lot of time at a computer.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
There's a synonym
for the word
synonym
it's poecilonym.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
"Kentish Fire" is a prolonged clapping by an audience, especially in unison, indicating impatience or disapproval.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
Data scientists analyzed 10,222 words to discover the "happiest" word in the English language. It's "laughter."
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
Wasp used to be "waps," while bird used to be "brid" and horse used to be "hros." Pronunciation errors made the English language what it is today.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
English has 3,000 words for being drunk.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
The term “checkmate” comes from the Arabic and ultimately Persian phrase “shah mat” which means “the king is dead.”
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
‘Cheesy' originally meant ‘excellent'.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
A "flibbertigibbet" is a frivolous and flighty person who is excessively talkative.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
The word "White" comes from the Indo-European root kweit meaning "to shine."
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
"Euouae" is the longest word in the English language which is made up of nothing but vowels.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
"Whatever" is the most annoying word, a U.S. poll found in 2016 for the eight year in a row.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
The average English-speaker has about 50,000 words in their mind and finds the right one in 600 milliseconds.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
"Bird" was originally spelled "brid."
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
The word ‘hundred' derives from ‘hundra' in Old Norse, which originally meant 120.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
‘Bumpsy' is 17th-century slang for ‘drunk'.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
770,000 people living in England cannot speak English well.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
Latin had about 800 obscene words; English has only about 20.
♦ SOURCE
♺ SHARE
Updated on 2019-11-26
Asia
America
Africa
Europe
Oceania
Antarctica
U.S.A.
United Nations
Cities
Places
Historic Events
People & Civilizations
Social Issues
Life & Love
Tech & Invention
Humor & Offbeat
Religion
Books & Language
Movies & TV
Art & Music
Food & Drink
Business & Economy
Sports & Games
Science
Animals & other lifeforms
Body & Health
Space
Global Issues
Phenomena
Plants & Minerals
World
History
Society
Nature
X
share
 
  
FACTSLIDES BOOK
Introducing our first book:

1001 Facts to Make your Brain Explode!

Even if you visit Factslides.com every day to get your dosis of new facts —just like over 1 million visitors do every month—, in this book you'll find facts you've never seen before!
Check it out on Amazon »