Language Lunchbox
In no particular order, here are a bunch of interesting language related fun facts we've collected.
Helicopter
The two parts to the word “helicopter” are not “heli” and “copter”, but “helico” and “pter”. The etymology comes from French hélicoptère, from Ancient Greek ἕλιξ (hélix, “spiral”) + πτερόν (pterón, “wing”).
Japanese kanji
木 tree
林 forest
桜 cherry tree
Anagram and primes
This was an interesting trick to quickly find anagrams of various word: assign each letter of the alphabet a prime number. Then you multiply all the letters together to get a value for that word which is made up of only prime factors. Any words with the same values will be anagrams of each other. It is a simple trick that probably has wider applications than you think.
Palindromes
We're big fans of words or sentences that can be read forwards and backwards.
- Yo banana boy
- Race car
- Go hang a salami I'm a lasagna hog
These are all great examples, but the same logic can extend to other interesting language representations. Here is a list of 706 words which are palindromes when spelled out using Morse code.
- SUPERFUNDS • • • • • – • – – • • • – • • • – • • • – – • – • • • • •
- RESEARCHER • – • • • • • • • – • – • – • – • • • • • • • – •
- SHEEPISH • • • • • • • • • • – – • • • • • • • • • •
Double Letters
Somewhere, it was said that "bookkeeper" is only word in the English language with 3 sets of double letters. (This VERY old Guardian article has some others) But the great thing about English is that there is no one in charge and you can make-up your own words. If they catch-on, then who's to say they are wrong. Let the proposal for an even longer word with even more sets of double letters commence. For instance, nookkeeper also has 3 sets of double letters. And if you kept raccoons in nooks, you could be considered a "raccoonnookkeeper", which has 6 sets of double letters. Can anyone do better?
Triple dots
There are not many words in English with three consecutive dotted letters, hijinks is certainly one, Fiji is another.
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