English sailors were referred to as "limeys" because sailors added lime juice to their diet to combat scurvy.
69
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.
7
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).
10
Hoover vacuum cleaners were so popular in the UK that many people now refer to vacuuming as hoovering.
59
There are only four words in the English language which end in “dous”:
tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
175
The word "impossible" dropped in use by 50% over the course of the 20th century
5
"Goodbye" came from "God bye" which came from "God be with you."
297