The word 'mortgage' comes from a French law term that means 'death pledge'.
14
In Turkish, the bird we call a Turkey is called "Hindi" ("from India"). In India, it's called "Peru." In Arabic, the bird is called "Greek chicken"; in Greek it's called "French chicken"; and in French it's called "Indian chicken." The bird is indigenous to none of these places.
44
Floccinaucinihilipilification, the declaration of an item being useless, is the longest non-medical term in the English language.
125
Switching letters is called spoonerism. For example, saying "jag of Flapan", instead of "flag of Japan".
2
A group of ferrets is called a business.
6
There are only four words in the English language which end in “dous”:
tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
175
A “butt” was a Medieval unit of measure for wine. Technically, a 'buttload' of wine is about 475 liters, or 126 gallons.
10
The technical term for a cat’s hairball is a “bezoar.”
117