Some "Facts" About The English Language

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Got this in my E-mail this morning, so I figured much of it could be bullsh*t.

Okay Dopers, Fact or Shiznit?

*SOME FACTS ABOUT THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

  1. No word in the English language rhymes with month.

  2. “Dreamt” is the only English word that ends in the letters “mt”.

  3. The word “set” has more definitions than any other word in the English language.

  4. “Underground” is the only word in the English language that begins and ends with the letters “und.”

  5. The longest one-syllable word in the English language is “screeched.”

  6. There are only four words in the English language which end in “dous”:
    tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.

  7. The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.

  8. The only other word with the same amount of letters is
    pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconioses, its plural.

  9. There is a seven letter word in the English language that contains ten words without rearranging any of its letters, “therein”: the, there, he, in, rein, her, here, ere, therein, herein.

  10. No words in the English language rhyme with orange, silver or purple.

  11. ‘Stewardesses’ is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.

  12. To “testify” was based on men in the Roman court swearing to a statement made by swearing on their testicles.

  13. The combination “ough” can be pronounced in nine different ways. The following sentence 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.”

  14. The verb “cleave” is the only English word with two synonyms which are antonyms of each other: adhere and separate.

  15. The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.

  16. Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct order, as does arsenious, meaning “containing arsenic.”

  17. It is possible, when correctly punctuated, to have the same word eleven times in a row in a sentence:

James, where John had had “had”, had had “had had”; “had had” had had the approval of the examiner.

2
  1. How about “stretched?”
  2. I’ll have to check on that one.
  3. and 8) That word was coined for a dictionary, and doesn’t exist in medical literature.
  4. I assume that “hiccough” here is pronounced as “hiccup.”
3

Yep, there all obscure words, just like the “-gry” words, and most are not found in common dictionaries:

apodous, antropodous, blizzardous, cogitabundous, decapodous, frondous, gastropodous, heteropodous, hybridous, iodous, isopodous, jeopardous, lagopodous, lignipodous, molybdous, mucidous, multifidous, nefandous, nodous, octapodous, palladous, paludous, pudendous, repandous, rhodous, sauropodous, staganopodous, tetrapodous, thamphipodous, tylopodous, vanadous and voudous

4

Re no. 14 -

Here’s another: “sanction.” Its antipodal meanings are “to confer official permission on” and “to prohibit.”

5

Also, re: no. 16:

In order to have ALL the vowels, you need to make those words “abstemiously” and “facetiously.”

And doesn’t “arsenious” mean “in the manner of the host of a washed-up talk-show host”?

6

one more, re: #11:

the longest word you can type on a typewriter that uses only keys on the top row is “typewriter.”

7

I think the thing about “cleave” was that its definitions varied by part of speech. Although I’m sure the differing parts of speech for “sanction” vary somewhat in the frequencies of their negative and positive definitions; i.e., perhaps a sanctions meaning “a prohibition” is more common than a sanction meaning “an endorsement”, and vice versa for the verbs.

8

bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronnt-uonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk

Now, how many people now who coined this “word”–without cheating???

9

Reply to Chef Troy:

Well, technically, yes. I’m (as I’m sure most of us are) familiar with the “sometimes y” rule, y is not a vowel, but can be used as one. Same with ‘w’. Technically, the ‘w’ in “cow” is being used as a vowel. But its not recognized individually as a vowel.

I hate this language.

10

Connor, I don’t think that’s what people mean when they are including w and y as vowels. I think they are thinking of words like “cwm” and “sky”. I think the w in cow is acting like a pretty normal consonant; it changes the prnounciation of the vowel o, but that isn’t too uncommon:
co-
cow
cot
all have different vowel sounds.

11

I’m guessing James Joyce.

There are lots of antipodal words: they’re collected in Richard Lederer’s Crazy English (where he calls them Janus-faced words).

Oh, and re #1:

“How many weeks in a month?
Four, as the swift moon runn’th.”
-Christina Rossetti

12

On the other hand, I think I agree with Connor that y doesn’t have to be included among the vowels in words involving all the vowels. I think they mean all the “full-time vowels”.

13

I took phonology last term, and as it turns out, the word “how” is pronounced /hæu/. After the letter “h” there are no further consonant sounds in that word. Ergo, “w” is a vowel in this context.

14
  1. I’ve heard this said about “jack”, but “set” sounds more likely.
  2. “Strengths” ties “screeched” and “stretched”, and only has one vowel.
  3. “Fast” (adj.) can mean both moving and unmoving.
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“4. “Underground” is the only word in the English language that begins and ends with the letters “und.””

Yes, but who cares?

“5. The longest one-syllable word in the English language is “screeched.””

How about “strengths?”

“6. There are only four words in the English language which end in “dous”: tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.”

Cecil did a column on this one, the list of which has been copied, so I’ll politely shut up.

“9. There is a seven letter word in the English language that contains ten words without rearranging any of its letters, “therein”: the, there, he, in, rein, her, here, ere, therein, herein.”

And there’s probably an archaic word “ein” . . .

  1. No words in the English language rhyme with orange, silver or purple.

“11. ‘Stewardesses’ is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.”

Um . . . when I only use my left hand there are lots of words I can type . . . antidisestablishmentarianism . . . typed that with my left hand.

“12. To “testify” was based on men in the Roman court swearing to a statement made by swearing on their testicles.”

Sounds painful. However, I think that comes form something else, though I can’t remember the etymology . . . however, I will ask.

“15. The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.”

There’s another . . . dermatoglyphics.

“16. Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct order, as does arsenious, meaning “containing arsenic.””

How about unoriental?

16

There are a handful of words that fit this:

Fast – “moving rapidly” (“That boat is fast.”) or “not moving at all” (“That boat is fast to the dock.”)
Moot – “a place of debate” (“Moot court”) or “something that’s isn’t debatable.” (“Moot point”).
table (v) – in U.S. Parliametary procedure, to table a motion means to postpone action. In U.K. parliamentary procedure, to table a motion is to act on it.

This is probably the longest word in the OED. Whether it’s the longest word in the language is debatable.

17

The only word with three consecutive sets of double letters: bookkeeper

or

The only word with four vowels in a row: Onamotopoeia

18

And let’s not forget that worthy person’s assistant, whose title contains FOUR consecutive sets of double letters:

the sub-bookkeeper.

19

Okay, I don’t know what I was thinking about cleave and parts of speech. Both cleave “to cling together” and cleave “to split apart” are verbs. I suppose one takes a direct object, and one takes an indirect object, though.

Actually, I don’t really like the “not arguable” definition of moot. I much prefer to use it to mean, “capable of being argued about for academic stimulation, but not for the purposes of drawing new conclusions”. Sort of a long definition, but I’m sort of attached to it.

20

Wow! This is the first thread I’ve started that didn’t sink like the Titanic. Thanks for all the good posts.

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