The “ye” that people often associate with old English isn’t pronounced with a y, it’s pronounced like the word, “the”. Old English had a Norse rune called Thorn, that was pronounced with the th sound. When printing presses became widespread, they only had latin characters, so they used y to represent this. This caused a lot of confusion, so Thorn was taken out of the English alphabet and replaced with the “th” sounds. A lot of irregular sounds in English, like “th”, “ght”, and “ough” come from changing of runic letters to Latin to fit printing presses.
The element Hydrogen means “water maker” in English, and in German it means “water stuff”.
Kazakhstan is the world’s largest exporter of Uranium, with 43% of its trade coming from it.
San Marino’s soccer team has finished bottom in the FIFA league for almost their entire existence. They’ve only ever won once, 1-0 in a game against Lichtenstein in 2004. Fans say it’s a miracle they even have a FIFA team, as the country only has 30,000 residents.
The international date line as drawn on maps isn’t accurate. The international date line follows the 180th parallel until a ship is within 12 miles off the coast of a country. The countries in the Pacific set themselves to either side of the line to fit with their trade partners, so each island is really an outcove past the parallels. Mapmakers find it difficult to represent this, so the dateline often resembles a giant hook as it skirts around these nations.
Paris, Texas has a mini Eiffel Tower with a cowboy hat on top.
The most toxic substance, made by a bacteria, is 200x more potent than the most toxic man made substance.
Luckenbach, Texas is a famous tourist attraction because of a country song by Walyon Jennings. It was a town built by German settlers consisting of a post office, a general store, and a one-room schoolhouse. Ranchers in the area would travel there rather than the larger neighboring town, Fredericksburg. Now, Luckenbach only exists as a tourist attraction.
It used to be considered improper English to end a sentence with a preposition, based on rules made in the 1700’s. Merriam-Webster ruled this year that it is proper grammar to end a sentence with one. Most people haven’t followed this rule for years. And, one consequence of being allowed to end a sentence with a preposition is that there is no longer a need to use the word “whom”.
Also, the difference between American and British spellings for words like “color/colour” is because of Merriam-Webster, as the creator of the dictionary spelled some words phonetically (the American way) so they could be easier to spell and understand.
An enclave is a territory completely surrounded by another, while an exclave is a part of a country completely separate from another. Lesotho is an enclave of South Africa and Kalliningrad is an exclave of Russia.
The full name of Bangkok, Thailand, is Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit.
The freezing point of ammonia is -107.9℉.
Sweden has the most islands, with 267,570.
The national animal of Scotland is the unicorn.
