I write stuff for kids...and muse on writing, children's books, and the publishing industry in general

Monday, May 30, 2011

Some (useless?) writing trivia to brighten your day

(Source)
The only city whose name can be spelled completely with vowels is Aiea, Hawaii.

Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct order, as does arsenious, meaning "containing arsenic."

The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.

The English word with the most consonants in a row is latchstring.

Switching letters is called spoonerism. For example, saying jag of Flapan, instead of flag of Japan.

(Source)
A H I M O T U V W X Y are the symmetric capital letters in the Roman alphabet. i l o t u v w x are the symmetric lower case letters in the Roman alphabet.

"Rhythm" and "syzygy" are the longest English words without vowels.

'Strengths' is the longest word in the English language with just one vowel.

The longest place-name still in use is Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu, a New Zealand hill.

The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. It is a a pneumoconiosis caused by the inhalation of very fine silicate or quartz dust. The only other word with the same amount of letters is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconioses, its plural.

The second longest word in the Oxford English Dictionary is "floccinaucinihilipilification," which means "the act of estimating as worthless."

The third longest word in the English language is "antidisestablishmenterianism"

The longest word that can be typed using on the right hand is 'lollipop'.

'Skepticisms' is the longest word that can be typed using alternate hands.

One of the longest English words that can be typed using the top row of a typewriter (allowing multiple uses of letters) is 'typewriter.'

When two words are combined to form a single word (e.g., motor + hotel = motel, breakfast + lunch = brunch) the new word is called a "portmanteau."

There is a word in the English language with only one vowel, which occurs six times: Indivisibility.

The letters H I O X in the latin alphabet is the only ones that look the same if you turn them upside down or see them from behind.

And a fun question for you: which seven letter word in the English language contains ten words without rearranging any of its letters? (Check out the answer below)

Other stuff:

Check out Deana Barnhart's Gearin' Up to Get an Agent blogfest, which will take place in July. There's heaps of prizes (including a query critique plus resubmit from me) and lots of bloghopping fun to be had!



The answer is "therein": the, there, he, in, rein, her, here, here, ere therein, herein.

Trivia Source

32 comments:

Suze said...

Yowza on the place in New Zealand.

PT Dilloway said...

Wow, that's a lot of stuff I probably never needed to know!

Royce A Ratterman said...

Then one moves to a foreign country and runs into more words - words that are harmless in the new country, but strange to the english hearer.
Royce in Norway

Jolene Perry said...

I love random stuff like this :D

Kay L. Davies said...

There's a lot of fun stuff here, some of which I knew, but many I didn't know.
(Found a grammatical error, though, which always delights the old editor in me; and a typo, which makes the old proofreader in me feel needed.)
— K

Kay, Alberta, Canada
An Unfittie's Guide to Adventurous Travel

Anonymous said...

I'm always doing spoonerisms with my son, now we know what to call the call the game, thanks!

Wales has been usurped on the longest place name, but not surprising, those Maori names are crazy long.

Clara Gillow Clark said...

Imagine the stunned silence if that hill in New Zealand was the final word in a Spelling Bee! Fun post, Rachel!

Crystal said...

I tried to pronounce that big, long New Zealand hill word, I really did!!! Holy COW, I don't think I've ever seen such a long word....

Cool trivia, Rach!! :-)

Sarah Tokeley said...

Thanks for making me smile - even though I couldn't pronounce half the words :)

Deana said...

Gah, that made me tired just reading:)

Charade said...

Love this kind of stuff - and here's another one for you.
What is the only word in the English language with three double letters in a row? (Here's the answer, backwards to slow you down a moment: repeekkoob - two o's, two k's, then two e's.

Hart Johnson said...

["floccinaucinihilipilification," which means "the act of estimating as worthless."]

Oh this TOTALLY needs to make the vernacular about romance. These were fun facts!

Maria Cisneros Toth Blog said...

And I always thought 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious' was the longest word, but maybe that mouthful is in the Mary Poppin's dictionary. :-)

Fun list!

Natasha Hanova said...

Things like this crack me up. How funny is it that "uncopyrightable" doesn't 'copy' any letters within itself. :-)

And "typewriter" being the longest word that can be typed using the top row, you know someone planned that.

Thanks for sharing.

Kerrin said...

I love that the longest place name in the world is here at home! I always thought it was a place in Wales!
Now i have to google to find out where in NZ it is!

Michael Di Gesu said...

Well, Rach,

That was fun? No really some of those words are INSANE!

K.V. Briar said...

Ha ha that was awesome! I already feel smarter, lol :)

Alleged Author said...

You should put that hill in your wip/novel. LOL!

J E Fritz said...

Useless or not, that was a lot of fun to read. I love tidbits like that.

Michael Offutt, Phantom Reader said...

Thank you Rach. You gave me fun stuff to message people with on my cell phone.

PK HREZO said...

Hey Rach! Wow, that's a lot of word info. Interesting stuff! I can't believe that New Zealand name.... lol. holy smokes!:)

Carol Riggs said...

Ha, these are great! Aren't words fun. :)

Tag, you're it! I've been tagged, and now it's your turn. See my blogpost for details and the nice things I said about you:
Artzicarol Ramblings

E. M. Prokop said...

This is awesome stuff Rach!! The New Zealand hill name is even longer than that town in Wales...don't ask me what it is, but it's a realllllyyyyy long name..
All this time I thought that switching the first letters of words was called 'Pig Latin' lol!
Great post! Thanks for this Rach!

Natasha Hanova said...

Just tagged you in a meme on my blog. :-)

KM Nalle said...

Love these random factoids.

Susanna Leonard Hill said...

I totally love stuff like this! I won't even try to say the name of that hill in NZ :)

Bess Weatherby said...

Hahaha! I once went to a talk by a man called the "Torysteller" who spoke all in spoonerisms. The best one is definitely Shiloh Pitt. (Piloh Shitt) Awkward name for a kid!

Anonymous said...

Goodness! Amazing stuff :O)

Regina said...

I really enjoyed all of this trivia/information. My head still hurts, but all those amazingly long words...wow!

Michael Offutt, Phantom Reader said...

Lovely Rach,

I have tagged you on my blog to answer some internet meme questions. Please consider filling them out so I can get a peek into the life of the Crusading superstar :)

Bess Weatherby said...

Two things more -- I tagged you in a post :)

And also -- on June 6 I'm also hosting a blogfest to write out our summer writing/life goals.

I'll be stopping by the Beta Match and linking to it on my blogfest post, if that's okay. Thanks for all the connecting you do!

Jayne said...

Lordy,I can't even pronounce some of those words. Fun random facts. I love useless trivia, although I think some of this might be quite useful. ;)

Related Posts with Thumbnails