TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

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.

What is the response to ‘How do you do?’

It depends on which side of the Atlantic you are from.

In British English, the standard response to ‘How do you do?’ is ‘How do you do?’ In India, when someone says ‘namaste’, we respond by saying ‘namaste’. The same is the case with ‘How do you do?’ This is an expression that is normally used when you are introduced to someone; once you have been introduced, you never use the expression with that individual again. The British make a distinction between ‘How do you do?’ and ‘How are you?’

The Americans, on the other hand, do not always maintain this distinction. It is common for Americans to say, ‘Fine, thank you’ in response to ‘How do you do?’

In India, you will be better off doing what the British do.

LOVERS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE MIGHT ENJOY THIS.

It is yet another example of why people learning English have trouble with the language.Learning the nuances of English makes it a difficult language. (But then, that's probably true of many languages.)

There is a two-letter word in English that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that word is 'UP.' It is listed in the dictionary as being used as an [adv], [prep], [adj], [n] or [v].


It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning,why do we wake UP? At a meeting, why does a topic comeUP ? Why do we speak UP, and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report? We call UP our friends and we use it to brighten UPa room, polish UP the silver, we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car. 
At other times the little word has a real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses.

To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed UP is special.And this up is confusing:
A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP.
We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night. We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP !

To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP , look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4 of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions

If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more.

When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP . When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP. When it rains, it wets UP the earth. When it does not rain for awhile, things dry UP.
One could go on & on, but I'll wrap it UP , for now ........my time is UP , so time to shut UP!

Oh...one more thing:
What is the first thing you do in the morning & the last thing you do at night?

U P

Don't screw up. Send this on to everyone you look up in your address book.
Now I'll shut up.

Affect Vs. Effect

Affect

In order to understand the correct situation in which to use the word affect or effect, the first thing one must do is have a clear understanding of what each word means.
'affect' means:

1. To have an influence on or effect a change in:Inflation affects the buying power of the dollar.
2. To act on the emotions of; touch or move.
3. To attack or infect, as a disease: Rheumatic fever can affect the heart.

Effect

The word effect has a different meaning.

1. Something brought about by a cause or agent; a result.
2. The power to produce an outcome or achieve a result; influence: The drug had an immediate effect on the pain. The government's action had no effect on the trade imbalance.
   
3. A scientific law, hypothesis, or phenomenon: the photovoltaic effect.
   |
4. Advantage; avail: used her words to great effect in influencing the jury.
   
5. The condition of being in full force or execution: a new regulation that goes into effect tomorrow.
   
6. 1. Something that produces a specific impression or supports a general design or intention: The lighting effects emphasized the harsh atmosphere of the drama.
   2. A particular impression: large windows that gave an effect of spaciousness.
   3. Production of a desired impression: spent lavishly on dinner just for effect.
      
7. The basic or general meaning; import: He said he was greatly worried, or words to that effect.

Grammar Rules for Affect and Effect

Now that we have the two definitions, how do we know which word to use? Here are a few suggestions to keep in mind:

1. If you are talking about a result, then use the word "effect."

• Example: What effect did the loss have on the team?

2. It is appropriate to use the word "effect" if one of these words is used immediately before the word: into, no, take, the, any, an, or and.

• Example: The prescribed medication had no effect on the patient's symptoms.
• Example: In analyzing a situation, it is important to take the concepts of cause and effect into consideration.

3. If you want to describe something that was caused or brought about, the right word to use is effect.

• Example: The new manager effected some positive changes in the office. (This means that the new manager caused some positive changes to take place in the office.)

4. Affect can be used as a noun to describe facial expression.

• Example: The young man with schizophrenia had a flat affect.
• Example: The woman took the news of her husband's sudden death with little affect.

5. Affect can also be used as a verb. Use it when trying to describe influencing someone or something rather than causing it.

• Example: How does the crime rate affect hiring levels by local police forces?
• Example: The weather conditions will affect the number of people who come to the county fair this year.

(An email forward)

Word's worth millions!

ANU GARG, 40
By Ajay Uprety
Believe it or not. Words are money. Anu Garg, 40, became a millionaire by selling English words.
Here's how. Garg grew up in a humble family in the nondescript village of Khakrauda in western Uttar Pradesh. He went to village schools and did not learn English until Class six. But that was enough to develop in him a fascination for words. Says his sister Mamta Agrawal: "His love for words started when he was quite young."
At the age of 25, Anu left for the US on a scholarship. He entered the business of selling words in 1994, when he launched a website for sending a word a day to subscribers. The response was overwhelming. His subscribers grew by leaps and bounds. Anu, an engineer by profession, became the self-described wordsmith that he is today.

Now based in Seattle in the US, Anu gets over 200 mails from word lovers. His words are popular with university students and corporate employees alike. Among his subscribers are Infosys, IBM and Wipro. His Indian subscribers number around 4,000. Anu used the internet and dictionaries for his research.
There is more to his credit. His first book, A Word A Day: A Romp Through Some of the Most Unusual and Intriguing Words in English, remained in the list of Amazon's top 100 bestsellers for two weeks.
Anu and his wife, Stuti, believe in simple living and shun animal- products like milk, leather and honey. A perfect life is the word, perhaps!

This is very interesting!

After reading it, you'll go "duh, I didn't know that."

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Interesting English:

*"Stewardesses" is the longest word typed with only the left hand And "lollipop" is the longest word typed with your right hand. (Bet you tried this out mentally, didn't you?)

*No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple.

*"Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt". ? (Are you doubting this?)

*Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.

*The sentence: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter of the alphabet. (Now, you KNOW you're going to try this out for accuracy, right?)

*The words 'race car,' 'kayak' and 'level' are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left (palindromes). (Yep, I knew you were going to "do" this one.)

*There are only four words in the English language which end in "dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous. (You're not doubting this, are you?)

*There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: "abstemious" and "facetious." (Yes, admit it, you are going to say, a e i o u)

*TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard. (All you typists are going to test this out)

_____________________________
Interesting Miscellany:

*A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.

*A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds. (Some days that's about what my memory span is.)

*A "jiffy" is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.

*A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.

*A snail can sleep for three years. (I know some people that could do this too.!)

*Almonds are a member of the peach family.

*An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain. (I know some people like that also)

*Babies are born without kneecaps. They don't appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age.

*February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.

*In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.

*If the population of China walked past you, 8 abreast, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.

*Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.

*Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite!

*Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.

*The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.

*The cruise liner, QE 2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.

*The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket. (Good thing he did that.)

*The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid.

*There are more chickens than people in the world.

*Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.

*Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
____________________________


Now you know more than you did before!!

(an email forward)
_________________

What is the response to ‘How do you do?’

It depends on which side of the Atlantic you are from.

In British English, the standard response to ‘How do you do?’ is ‘How do you do?’ In India, when someone says ‘namaste’, we respond by saying ‘namaste’. The same is the case with ‘How do you do?’ This is an expression that is normally used when you are introduced to someone; once you have been introduced, you never use the expression with that individual again. The British make a distinction between ‘How do you do?’ and ‘How are you?’

The Americans, on the other hand, do not always maintain this distinction. It is common for Americans to say, ‘Fine, thank you’ in response to ‘How do you do?’

In India, you will be better off doing what the British do.