Checking English Trivias

Because I love the English language, but not as much for our own language, Filipino, I keep on reading trivia about it. I have memorized some. They are fun to read and very interesting. they will also widen up your vocabulary. Through reading books and surfing the net,I found these:

Of all the words in the English language, the word ‘set’ has the most definitions!
What is called a “French kiss” in the English speaking world is known as an “English kiss” in France.
“Almost” is the longest word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.
“Rhythm” is the longest English word without a vowel.
The word “queue” is the only word in the English language that is still pronounced the same way when the last four letters are removed.
Uncopyrightable is the longest word with no repeated letters.
The word checkmate comes from the Persian phrase “Shah Mat”, which means “the king is dead”.
No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, and purple.
“Ough” can be pronounced in eight different ways. The following sentence contains them all: “A rough-coated, dough-faced ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough, coughing and hiccoughing thoughtfully.
The “O” when used as a prefix in Irish surnames means “descendant of.”
The ZIP in Zip-code stands for “Zoning Improvement Plan.”
The term “devil’s advocate” comes from the Roman Catholic Church. When deciding if someone should be sainted, a devil’s advocate is always appointed to give an alternative view.
The word “robot” was created by Karel Capek. It came from Czech/Slovak “robotovat,” which means to work very hard.
The term “the whole 9 yards” came from W.W.II fighter pilots in the South Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got “the whole 9 yards.”
Switching letters is called spoonerism. For example, saying jag of Flapan, instead of flag of Japan.
“Underground” is the only word in the English language that begins and ends with the letters “und.”
“Freelance” comes from a knight whose lance was free for hire, i.e. not pledged to one master.
“Speak of the Devil” is short for “Speak of the Devil and he shall come”. It was believed that if you spoke about the Devil it would attract his attention. That’s why when your talking about someone and they show up people say “Speak of the Devil”.
The plastic things non the end of shoelaces are called aglets.
ALMOST is the longest word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.
TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.
Go is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
The shortest English word that contains the letters A, B, C, D, E, and F is feedback.
The dot over the letter ‘i’ is called a tittle.
The word checkmate in chess comes from the Persian phrase “Shah Mat,” which means “the king is dead”.
A sentence that contains all 26 letters of the alphabet is called a pangram, and the most famous is the one typists use to test their keyboards: “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”.
White trail that a jet plane leaves behind in the sky is called contrail.