Sometimes, it\u2019s nice to have a quick, interesting fact to call upon. While facts about the weather, the Stranger Things cast, or Elon Musk might appeal to certain audiences, facts about words will make you look smart in front of virtually all audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, here\u2019s a few to start with! Next time someone wonders what the longest word is, where a certain word come from, or struggles to use all their consonants in Scrabble, you\u2019ll be on-hand with your new word-wisdom!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The alphabet \u2013 the building blocks of all words. Ever wonder how someone decided how to name the alphabet? Maybe it\u2019s the name of a fancy Latin philosopher or writer? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Turns out it\u2019s way simpler than that! The first two letters of the Greek alphabet are Alpha and Beta. Combine those and you\u2019re there. So, the alphabet is quite simply named after the first two letters in the sequence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The way we pronounce words is often very different from how they appear when they\u2019re written down. For example, the sound \u201cee\u201d doesn\u2019t just apply to the double-e that that appears in words like \u201ccheese\u201d or \u201cfree\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In fact, there are seven different spellings of the \u201cee\u201d sound. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Need a sentence that includes all seven of those to test it out? Try this one:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe believed Caesar could see people seizing the seas\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n There are plenty of words that contain strings of alphabetically sequential letters \u2013 but only one if you\u2019re looking to use x, y, and z in that order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The word? Hydroxyzine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Hydroxyzine is a type of medicine called an antihistamine \u2013 used for, amongst other things, the treatment of itchiness and sneezing that comes when you have an allergic reaction to something. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Need to get rid of some of those consonants when you\u2019re playing Scrabble? Why not play the word \u201cstrengths\u201d \u2013 it\u2019s the longest word in the English word that contains just one vowel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, it\u2019s seems second nature to use the \u2018X\u2019 character to represent a kiss at the end of a message or in a greetings card \u2013 but it hasn\u2019t always been this way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, the first recording instance of \u2018X\u2019 as a kiss was a letter sent by Naturalist Gilbert White in 1763. Despite being credited for inventing the most romantic use of the letter X, he sadly never found love and never married.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We can all think of words that have a few different meanings \u2013 but which words has the most?<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to the Guinness Book of World Records, it\u2019s the word \u2018set\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How many can you think of? Maybe there\u2019s the tennis \u201cgame, set, and match\u201d meaning, a collection of something, and something you to with cutlery and a table \u2013 but how many more?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, prepare to be surprised. There are 430 different meanings of the word \u2018set\u2019 in the Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. If you ever decide that you\u2019d like to consult an unabridged dictionary, you\u2019ll also find that those 430 different meanings are followed by 60,000 words describing them all too!<\/p>\n\n\n\n The letter \u201cE\u201d is the most commonly used in the English language. In fact, it accounted for 11.1607% letters in the words included Concise Oxford English dictionary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 8.4966% of the letters in those same words were \u201cA\u201d \u2013 a fairly close runner up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So, if you want to stand the best chance of getting a good start with tomorrow\u2019s Wordle \u2013 think of a letter that contains both \u201cA\u201d and \u201cE\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now we know the most common letters in English \u2013 what about the least common?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, according to the same study carried out above, the letter \u201cQ\u201d was the least common. It accounts for just 0.1962% of the letters in the Concise Oxford English dictionary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As such, \u201cQ\u201d is likely to be your least favourite to pull out of the bag when you\u2019re playing Scrabble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Looking for the shortest possible word that contains the letters \u201cA\u201d, \u201cB\u201d, \u201cC\u201d, \u201cD\u201d, \u201cE\u201d and \u201cF\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019ll be \u201cfeedback\u201d \u2013 information about a product or a performance that\u2019s intended to be used as a basis for improvement. Of course, that\u2019s unless you\u2019re a fan of rock music \u2013 in which case \u201cfeedback\u201d is the screech that happens when the noise of an output is picked up by the input of the same device that created it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Struggle to think of a word that\u2019s seriously long? If you decide to get clued-up on obscure types of lung disease, you\u2019ll find the longest one possible: \u201cpneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, technically, this word relates to a type of lung disease \u2013 but there\u2019s a little bit of creativity cheating going on here. Turns out it\u2019s technically correct \u2013 but it was actually coined in the 1930s by the president of the National Puzzlers League specifically to become the longest word in the English language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, it stands \u2013 and at 45 letters long, it\u2019s a tough one to beat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hang on a second \u2013 didn\u2019t we just discover that \u201cpneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis\u201d was the longest word in English?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, it\u2019s not quite that simple. What most of us consider to be a dictionary is actually a \u2018concise dictionary\u2019 \u2013 meaning many of the less-common or more technical words are skipped over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To find these words, you\u2019ll need to look at an unabridged dictionary. If you do and you take the considerable time needed to flick to the \u2018M\u2019 section, you\u2019ll find the chemical name for \u2018Tintin\u2019 \u2013 the largest known kind of protein.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The word is made up of the 21 chemicals that combine to make the Tintin protein. The thing is, most of these chemicals appear numerous times in the word. For example, \u201cmethionyl\u201d features 337 times in the name \u2013 and the chemical \u201cvalyl\u201d appears 2,414 times in the chemical composition of the protein \u2013 so it also appears 2,414 times in the name. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We won\u2019t make you read it all here \u2013 but it starts like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n methionylthreonylthreonylglutaminylalanylprolylthreonylphenylalanylthreonylglutaminylprolylleucylglutaminylserylvalyl\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Although exact counts seem to vary, the full word is actually a whopping 216,747 letters long. Drop that word into a Microsoft Word document and you\u2019d need 47 pages of A4 paper to print it out in a 12pt typeface! <\/strong>Fancy having a shot at saying it out loud? It\u2019ll take the average person about 2 hours<\/strong> to get through it. Probably best to just say \u201cthe chemical name for Tintin!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019ve included a fact about the acronym \u201cTl;dr\u201d at the end of this article because that\u2019s where you\u2019ll usually find it \u2013 especially in blog posts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You probably already know that it stands for \u201ctoo long; didn\u2019t read\u201d \u2013 and often summarizes writing for those short on time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What you maybe didn\u2019t know is that fact that it\u2019s actually considered an official word in the dictionary! Merriam-Webster added \u201cTl;dr\u201d to its pages in 2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sometimes, it\u2019s nice to have a quick, interesting fact to call upon. While facts about the weather, the Stranger Things cast, or Elon Musk might appeal to certain audiences, facts about words will make you look smart in front of virtually all audience. So, here\u2019s a few to start with! Next time someone wonders what… <\/p>\nX, Y, & Z <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Just one vowel please!<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Kisses<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The word with many meanings<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The most common letter in English<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The least common letter in English<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
ABCDEF<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The longest word in a major dictionary<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The longest word in the English language<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Tl;dr<\/h2>\n\n\n\n