حقایقی درباره زبان انگلیسی
20 Interesting Facts About English
14. A word formed by joining together parts of existing words is called " blend " ( or less commonly " a portmanteau word " ) . Many new words entered the English language in this way. Examples are " brunch " (breakfast+lunch) , "motel" (motorcar+hotel) , "guesstimate" (guess+estimate) . Note that blends are not as compounds or compound nouns , which form when two whole words join together , for example ; website, background , darkroom.
15. The word "alphabet" comes from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet , alpha , beta.
16. The dot over the letter "i" and the letter "j" is called a " superscript dot."
17. In normal usage , the # symbol has several names, for example ; hash , pound sighn , number sign.
18. In English , the @ symbol is usually called " the at sign " or "the at symbol."
19. If we place a comma before the word "and" at the end of the list , this is known as an "Oxford comma " or a " serial comma" . For example ; " I drink coffee, tea , and milk. "
20. Some words exist only in plural form , for example ; glasses (spectacles) , binoculars , scissors , gallows , trousers ,jeans, pants, pajamas (but note that clothing words often become singular when we use them as modifiers , as in "trouser pocket" .)
The end
13. The only word in English that ends with the letters " -mt " is " dreamt " which is a various spelling of " dreamed " - as well of course as " undreamed " .
8. More English words begin with the letter " S " than with any other letter.
9. A preposition is always followed by a noun ( i.e. noun , proper noun , pronoun ,
noun group , gerund )
10. The word " uncopyrightable " is the longest English word in normal use that contains no letter more than once.
11. A sentence that contains all 26 letters of the alphabet is called " pangram " .
12. The following sentence contains all 26 letters of the alphabet.
" The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog " . This sentence is often used to test typewriters or keyboards.
1. The most common letter in English is " E ".
2. The most common vowel in English is " e " followed by " a " .
3. The most common consonant in English is " r " followed by " t " .
4. Every syllable in English must have a vowel sound. Not all syllables have consonants.
5. Only two English words in current use ends in " -gry " . They are " angry " and " hungry ".
6. The word " bookkeeper " ( along with its associate " bookkeeping " ) is the only unhyphenated English word with three consecutive double letters. Other such words , like " sweet-toothed " , require a hyphen to be readily readable.
7. The word " triskaidekaphobia " means " extreme fear of number 13 " . This superstition is related to " paraskevidekatriaphobia " which means " fear of Friday the 13th "
