10 English Language Oddities

Many people find that English might possibly be one of the most difficult languages to learn. One of the reason for this opinion is that there are quite a lot of unusual and contradictory rules. Here are some examples of the oddities in English:

  1. “Rhythms” is the longest English word without the normal vowels, a, e, i, o, or u.
  2. There is only one common word in English that has five vowels in a row: queueing.
  3. “The sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick” is said to be the toughest tongue twister in English.
  4. “Underground” and “underfund” are the only words in the English language that begin and end with the letters “und.”
  5. “Dreamt” is the only English word that ends in the letters “mt”.
  6. “Almost” is the longest commonly used word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.
  7. “THEREIN” is a seven-letter word that contains thirteen words spelled using consecutive letters: the, he, her, er, here, I, there, ere, rein, re, in, therein, and herein.
  8. Bookkeeper is the only word that has three consecutive doubled letters.
  9. “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.
  10. Despite the assertions of a well-known puzzle, modern English does not have three common words ending in -gry. Angry and hungry are the only ones.

 

The oddities above just make English even more interesting to learn. Do you know any other oddities in English? Share with us!

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