Education

6 English facts you just had no clue about!

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English lovers and admirers are in a love-hate relationship with the language. No matter how many books you read, or no matter how much time you have invested in learning English, you will always have room for improvement. But let the journey never end. To keep your experience with English stimulating, here are listed a few interesting facts that you had zero clues about!

  1. English back in the days had the “grammatical gender”:
    Many languages feature what is known as “grammatical gender.” Spanish people, for example, apply the gender articles “el” and “la” (the) depending on whether a word is masculine or feminine. Similarly, English used to have something similar but is now into the current language today.
  2. Shakespeare has himself added 1000 words to the language:
    “The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool” – William Shakespeare. If you are lucky enough then you were not annoyed by this man in your high school. But some weren’t as fortunate as you are. William never intended to annoy folks ahead of him but he sure did coin nearly 1,000 English words to the language.
    Today these words are still used in regular speech by native English speakers.
  3. English, also the official language on air:
    If you haven’t yet grasped this language, you should learn English today. Not only the universal language around the world, but English travels around the air every day! Every time a flight runs, pilots and attendees greet and make announcements in English.
  4. The # symbol has endless meanings:
    Hashtags – This is a more modern application of the # symbol. The # a sign is used before a word or phrase on Twitter and other forms of social media to distinguish communications on a certain topic.

Number sign – Because the pound sign was often mistaken for British cash, the term number sign was used in British English (pound). The # sign can be used to denote numbers such as 8 (#8).

  • 1000 English words are added every year!
    Wasn’t the hefty dictionary enough to thrust that English fever down? But to our surprise and yet excitement, new words are added to the language. Every year, the Oxford English Dictionary is revised four times: in March, June, September, and December. More than 600 new words and phrases were added to the Oxford English Dictionary in June of 2017.
  • English is yet not the official language of the US

 

Many multilingual countries encourage the use of an official language, but the United States has never done so with English. In truth, the United States has no federally recognised official language.

Whether you love or despise the English language (or both, depending on the day), you can’t deny that it keeps you guessing wonders. Moreover, English seems to be one of the most spoken languages around the world. Today you got an English learning app proving you the same!

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