Subject: Things I never learned in school, and which may or may not be true


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.   The symbol on the "pound" key (#) is called an octothorpe.

4.   The dot over the letter 'i' is called a tittle.

5.   The word "set" has more definitions than any other word in the English 
     language.

6.   "Underground" is the only word in the English language that begins and 
     ends with the letters "und."

7.   There are only four words in the English language which end in "-dous:"  
     tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.

8.   The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford English 
     Dictionary, is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.

9.   The only other word with the same amount of letters is
     neumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconioses, its plural.

10.  The longest place-name still in use is of a New Zealand hill called
     Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoro
     nukupokaiwenuakitnatahu.

11.  Los Angeles's full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los 
     Angeles de Porciuncula" and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size: "L.A."

12.  Donald Duck's middle name is Fauntleroy.

13.  Steely Dan got their name from a sexual device depicted in the book 'The 
     Naked Lunch.'

14.  A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.

15.  The Ramses brand condom is named after the great pharaoh Ramses II who 
     fathered over 160 children.

16.  There is a seven-letter word in the English language that contains ten 
     words without rearranging any of its letters. This word is "therein," 
     and the words within it are: the, there, he, in, rein, her, here, ere, 
     therein, herein.

17.  The letters KGB stand for Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti.

18.  'Stewardesses' is the longest English word that is typed with only the 
     left hand.

19.  To "testify" was based on men in the Roman court swearing to a statement 
     made by swearing on their testicles.

20.  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."

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

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

23.  The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat," 
     which means "the king is dead."

24.  The first episode of "Joanie Loves Chachi" was the highest-rated American 
     program in the history of Korean television. "Chachi" is Korean for 
     "penis"