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Can't Not Know: 10 Fascinating Facts About the English Language Whether you're a native speaker or learning English as a second language, there are some interesting and peculiar facts about the language that you probably didn't know. Here are 10 fascinating facts about the English language that you simply can't not know.
1. The longest word in the English language is 45 letters long. It's a medical term called pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, which refers to a lung disease caused by inhaling very fine silica particles.
2. The shortest sentence in English is "I am", which contains a subject, a verb, and an object.
3. The word "set" has the most number of definitions in the English language. It has over 430 different meanings.
4. English is the official language of 67 countries, making it the most widely spoken language in the world.
5. The word "oxymoron" comes from two Greek words that mean "sharp dullness". It refers to a figure of speech where two contradictory terms are used together, like "jumbo shrimp" or "pretty ugly".
6. The letter "e" is the most commonly used letter in the English language, and appears in approximately 11% of all English words.
7. The word "pandemonium" comes from John Milton's "Paradise Lost" and refers to the capital city of Hell, where all the demons reside.
8. The word "nerd" was first coined by Dr. Seuss in his book "If I Ran the Zoo".
9. The English language has more words than any other language in the world, with over 170,000 words currently in use.
10 The phrase "rule of thumb" derives from an old English law that allowed a man to beat his wife with a stick as long as the stick was no thicker than his thumb. Thankfully, this law has been abolished. From its vast vocabulary to its peculiar origins, the English language truly is a fascinating subject.