The jaw dropping reality English learners love to ignore

English is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. It’s also one of the most complex. There are many nuances to English that can make it difficult for non-native speakers to learn. But with a little bit of effort, anyone can become fluent in this global language. Here are 25 mind-blowing facts about English that will help you understand this unique language better. Enjoy!

1) The English language is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, with over 350 million native speakers.

2) All words in the English language are based on either German or Latin.

3) Computers around the world store 80% of their information in English 

4) It’s believed that Shakespeare invented the word “assassination” and “skim milk”. He coined more than 2,000 words!

5) The word ‘set’ has more definitions than any other word in the English language. There are 430 definitions of the verb set in a dictionary, with its meanings being limited only by context and grammar.

6) The most common letters in the English language are ETAOIN SHRDLU. This comes from on old telegraph code used to spell out words using sequences of two or three letters. These letter layouts were designed so that often used letter combinations would be short on telegraph messages; thus ETAON ALMSDRL means “the.”

7) The most common word in the English language is ‘the,’ and almost two-thirds of all words are swear words.

8) One of the most common adjectives in English is “good“

9) “Town” is the oldest English word that is still in use.

10) There are over 500 idioms with the word ‘out’ in them. For example, ‘he ran me out of the room’ (he chased me out of the room), or ‘out to lunch’.

11) There are over 20 ways to pronounce the letter combination “ough”.

12) English has a vocabulary of over 1 million words and 4,000 new words are being added each year.

13) The most commonly used noun phrase is “What’s going on?” It is frequently used as a greeting, as an informal way of saying hello and also as a sign off for emails and text messages

14) The Oxford English Dictionary currently contains over 600,000 entries – making it the largest single-language dictionary published in any language – and about 130,000 obsolete words and 450,000 obsolete spellings.

15) By the age of 21, the average American has heard approximately 500,000 words and seen 60,000 idioms.

16) From an etymological standpoint, Great Britain means “land of the tattooed.”

17) Non-native speakers often do not get sarcasm because they misunderstand it

18) The longest word in English is “Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis” and refers to a lung disease caused by the inhalation of very fine silica dust.

19) The most common ending for boys’ names in English speaking countries is -son . The most common ending for girls’ names is -a .  

20) The most common letter in the English language is ‘e’, occurring approximately eight times for every ten words. The most common vowel is ‘o’, which occurs about four times for every ten words.

21) The shortest complete sentence in the English language is “I am.“

22) The sentence “The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog” uses every letter in the English alphabet!

23) The longest one-syllable word in English is “screeched.”

24) In English, a double negative forms a positive.

25) In English you wouldn’t say “Do you want this one or that one?” You would ask, “Do you want this one or the other?” which has ‘the’ twice.

This article has been a whirlwind of information about our language. We hope you’ve enjoyed it! If you need help in any way, feel free to reach out and we will do our best to answer your questions or find someone who can. If the topic interests you, please share this blog post with others who might be interested in it. You never know how much it could impact their lives. Thank you for reading all the way to the end.