A “butt” was a Medieval unit of measure for wine. Technically, a 'buttload' of wine is about 475 liters, or 126 gallons.
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More people in Africa speak French than in France itself.
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The equivalents of the English saying "That's Greek to me" are "This appears to be Spanish" (German), "This is Chinese to me" (Dutch), "It's German to me" (Philippines), "It's Hebrew" (Finnish), "It's Chinese to me" (Hebrew), "Sounds like Mars language/These are chicken intestines" (China).
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The word "impossible" dropped in use by 50% over the course of the 20th century
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Shakespeare's works contain first-ever recordings of 2,035 English words, including critical, frugal, excellent, barefaced, assassination, and countless.
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There are only four words in the English language which end in “dous”:
tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
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Before the English speaking world was exposed to the fruit, the color orange was referred to as “geoluhread” which is Old English for red-yellow.
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The phrase 'rule of thumb' is derived from and old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
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