Post by Jamie on May 1, 2009 15:30:42 GMT -5
"I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without killing them use to burn their houses down -
hence the expression "to get fired."
Dreamt is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt."
Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct order, as does arsenious, meaning "containing arsenic."
In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts. So in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them to mind their own pints and quarts and settle down. It's where we get the phrase "mind your P's and Q's."
In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes. When you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. That's where the phrase, "goodnight, sleep tight" came from.
It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open. (DON'T try this at home!)
It was the accepted practice in Babylon, 4,000 years ago, that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer, and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the "honey month" or what we know today as the "honeymoon."
Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim or handle of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. "Wet your whistle," is the phrase inspired by this practice.
No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver or purple.
Stewardesses is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.
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."
The dot over the letter 'i' is called a tittle.
The longest one-syllable words in the English language are screeched and scratched.
The longest place-name still in use is
Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupo-kaiwenuakitnatahu, a New Zealand hill.
The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. The only other word with the same amount of letters is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconioses, its plural.
The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the "General Purpose" vehicle, G.P.
The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.
The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
The term "the whole 9 yards" came from W.W.II fighter pilots in the Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got "the whole 9 yards."
The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat," which means "the king is dead".
The word "set" has more definitions than any other word in the English language.
There are only four words in the English language which end in "-dous" tremendous, horrendous, stupendous and hazardous.
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.
To "testify" was based on men in the Roman court swearing to a statement made by swearing on their testicles.
Underground is the only word in the English language that begins and ends with the letters "und."
Animals
A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
A dragonfly has a life span of 24 hours.
A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.
A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.
A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
An iguana can stay under water for 28 minutes.
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
Camel's milk does not curdle.
Cat's urine glows under a blacklight.
Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have about ten.
Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the Australian coat of arms for that reason.
Giraffes have no vocal cords.
In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
It takes 3,000 cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year's supply of footballs.
It takes a lobster approximately seven years to grow to be one pound.
Many hamsters only blink one eye at a time.
Murphy's Oil Soap is the chemical most commonly used to clean elephants.
The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world.
The male gypsy moth can "smell" the virgin female gypsy moth from 1 mile away.
The muzzle of a lion is like a fingerprint: no two lions have the same pattern of whiskers.
The world's termites outweigh the world's humans 10 to 1.
There are more chickens than people in the world.
Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
When opossums are playing 'possum, they are not "playing." They actually pass out from sheer terror.
Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without killing them use to burn their houses down -
hence the expression "to get fired."
Dreamt is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt."
Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct order, as does arsenious, meaning "containing arsenic."
In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts. So in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them to mind their own pints and quarts and settle down. It's where we get the phrase "mind your P's and Q's."
In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes. When you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. That's where the phrase, "goodnight, sleep tight" came from.
It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open. (DON'T try this at home!)
It was the accepted practice in Babylon, 4,000 years ago, that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer, and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the "honey month" or what we know today as the "honeymoon."
Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim or handle of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. "Wet your whistle," is the phrase inspired by this practice.
No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver or purple.
Stewardesses is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.
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."
The dot over the letter 'i' is called a tittle.
The longest one-syllable words in the English language are screeched and scratched.
The longest place-name still in use is
Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupo-kaiwenuakitnatahu, a New Zealand hill.
The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. The only other word with the same amount of letters is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconioses, its plural.
The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the "General Purpose" vehicle, G.P.
The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.
The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
The term "the whole 9 yards" came from W.W.II fighter pilots in the Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got "the whole 9 yards."
The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat," which means "the king is dead".
The word "set" has more definitions than any other word in the English language.
There are only four words in the English language which end in "-dous" tremendous, horrendous, stupendous and hazardous.
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.
To "testify" was based on men in the Roman court swearing to a statement made by swearing on their testicles.
Underground is the only word in the English language that begins and ends with the letters "und."
Animals
A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
A dragonfly has a life span of 24 hours.
A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.
A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.
A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
An iguana can stay under water for 28 minutes.
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
Camel's milk does not curdle.
Cat's urine glows under a blacklight.
Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have about ten.
Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the Australian coat of arms for that reason.
Giraffes have no vocal cords.
In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
It takes 3,000 cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year's supply of footballs.
It takes a lobster approximately seven years to grow to be one pound.
Many hamsters only blink one eye at a time.
Murphy's Oil Soap is the chemical most commonly used to clean elephants.
The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world.
The male gypsy moth can "smell" the virgin female gypsy moth from 1 mile away.
The muzzle of a lion is like a fingerprint: no two lions have the same pattern of whiskers.
The world's termites outweigh the world's humans 10 to 1.
There are more chickens than people in the world.
Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
When opossums are playing 'possum, they are not "playing." They actually pass out from sheer terror.
that would be fun if you lived on that hill could you imagine writting out your address lmao 