The shortest, oldest, and most commonly used word is “I.” The nonexistent word “dord” appeared in the dictionary for eight years in the mid-20th century.

There are “ghost words” that mean nothing.īelieve it or not, there are some words that appeared in the dictionary because of printing errors. Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is a type of lung disease caused by inhaling ash and dust. What you probably didn’t know is that there is a word that is longer-yes longer-than this one.

This extra long word (that approximately means “fantastic”) was popularized by the movie Mary Poppins and was eventually added to the dictionary. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (*breath*) is NOT the longest word in English. “I am” is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.Ī pangram sentence is one that contains every letter in the language.įor example, the sentence “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” is a pangram. Let’s take a look at ten interesting facts about the English language: 1 Compared to other languages, English may seem simple, but that is probably because most people don’t realize it is full of crazy inventions, misinterpretations, mistakes, strange words, and needless words!

World language trivia