English Facts !  !

• English actually originates from what is now called north west Germany and the Netherlands.

• The phrase “long time no see” is believed to be a literal translation of a Native American or Chinese phrase as it is not grammatically correct.

• “Go!” is the shortest grammatically correct sentence in English.

• The original name for butterfly was flutterby.

• About 4,000 words are added to the dictionary each year.

• The two most common words in English are I and you.

• 11% of the entire English language is just the letter E.

• The English language is said to be one of the happiest languages in the world – oh, and the word ‘happy’ is used 3 times more often than the word ‘sad’!

• 1/4 of the world’s population speaks at least some English.

• The US doesn’t have an official language.

• It is the only major language that doesn’t have any organization guiding it – as opposed to the French Académie française, the Spanish Real Academia Española and the German Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung. These organizations are responsible for controlling the evolution of their respective language in terms of usage, vocabulary, and grammar.

• The most common adjective used in English is ‘good’.

• The most commonly used noun is ‘time’.

• The word ‘set’ has the highest number of definitions.

• Month, orange, silver, and purple do not rhyme with any other word.

• The English language contains a lot of contronyms – words that can have contradictory meanings depending on context. You can read a list here!

• Over 80% of the information stored on computers worldwide is in English.

• Words that are used to fill in time when speaking, such as ‘like’ or ‘basically’, are called crutch words (and should best be avoided!)

• English is the official language of 67 countries.

• 90% of English text consists of just 1000 words.