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
The word "listen" contains the same letters as "silent."
135
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
Shakespeare invented over 1,700 words that we use today.
17