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:
- “Rhythms” is the longest English word without the normal vowels, a, e, i, o, or u.
- There is only one common word in English that has five vowels in a row: queueing.
- “The sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick” is said to be the toughest tongue twister in English.
- “Underground” and “underfund” are the only words in the English language that begin and end with the letters “und.”
- “Dreamt” is the only English word that ends in the letters “mt”.
- “Almost” is the longest commonly used word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.
- “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.
- Bookkeeper is the only word that has three consecutive doubled letters.
- “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.
- 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!