Interesting Facts

1. The longest one-syllable word in the English language is
"screeched."


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


3. Almonds are members of the peach family.


4. The symbol on the "pound" key (#) is called an octothorpe.


5. The dot over the letter 'i' is called a tittle.


6. Ingrown toenails are hereditary.


7. The word "set" has more definitions than any other word in
the English language.


8. "Underground" is the only word in the English language that
begins and ends with the letters "und."


9. There are only four words in the English language which end
in "-dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.


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


11. The only other word with the same amount of letters is its
plural: pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosesl.


12. The longest place-name still in use is
Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukup
okaiwe-nuakit natahu, a New Zealand hill.


13. Los Angeles's full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la
Reinade los Angeles de Porciuncula" and can be abbreviated to
3.63% of its size,L.A.


14. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.


15. Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.


16. Alfred Hitchcock didn't have a belly button. It was
eliminated when he was sewn up after surgery.


17. Telly Savalas and Louis Armstrong died on their birthdays.


18. Donald Duck's middle name is Fauntleroy.


19. The muzzle of a lion is like a fingerprint - no two lions
have the same pattern of whiskers.


21. A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.


23. 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.


24. Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are
registered blood donors.


26. A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.


27. It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.


28. Cranberries are sorted for ripeness by bouncing them; a
fully ripened cranberry can be dribbled like a basketball.


30. The letters KGB stand for Komitet Gosudarstvennoy
Bezopasnosti


31. 'Stewardesses' is the longest English word that is typed
with only the left hand.


33. 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."


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


35. Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the
correct order, as does arsenious, meaning "containing arsenic."


36. Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the
Australian seal for that reason.


37. Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only
have about ten.


38. The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase
"Shah Mat," which means "the king is dead."


39. The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the
days of yore when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses
were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up
straight staircases.