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9 Must-Know Interesting Facts about English Language

There’s always so much to learn when you’re studying a new foreign language and English is no different in this respect. A wide range of factors come together to make English the wonderfully diverse language that it is today. Make things a little more fun when you consider some of the most interesting facts about English language and how it developed. Use the facts below to impress your teachers and encourage your fellow students. Are you interested in words with interesting etymology? Then you should visit this page.

The Top 5 English Language Facts

English language history is a varied and always interesting affair simply because of all of the fascinating events that occurred to shape the language into what it is today. There are actually hundreds of little tidbits that make learning this incredible global language a really interesting adventure, but the 5 English language facts below are among the most intriguing.

  • “E” is easily the most commonly used letter in the alphabet. If you remove this letter from every word in a page of text, it’ll almost turn into gibberish. It’s found in more than 10% of the most frequently used English words, so you’ll have real trouble reading without it.
  • Speaking of the most commonly used letters, it’s been found that the letter “S” is found at the beginning of more words than any other letter. Just look at the “S” section of a dictionary if you have trouble believing this. Aside from that, “S” is the third-most common consonant and by some accounts also occupies the number one spot for letters at the end of words.

English language interesting fact

  • English is notorious for its complex spelling rules, and true to form, there are lots of ways to spell the sound that is commonly represented by “ee”. Take a look at ‘ae’, ‘eo’, ‘ei’, and ‘ea’ for example. You’ll see these and a few hidden ones in the sentence: “Caesar saw the people seizing the ships on the seas”. Keep at it, though, and you’ll soon see the fruits of your labor.
  • Here’s a fun one for the poets among us. It’s impossible to find a rhyming word for “month”, “silver” or “orange”. There are plenty of examples of people trying, though. These are usually children desperately trying to prove the rule wrong or by adults trying to deliberately rhyme these words for comedic effect.
  • English is a rapidly growing language and to prove it, take a look at the latest copy of Merriam-Webster. Every year, you’ll find up to 4,000 new words being added. That’s one word for every two hours that pass. It’s hardly surprising that many of these words are related to the latest technologies or slang used among teenagers.

The Top 4 Misconceptions about English

English language history is rich and full of interesting encounters, whether academic or even military in nature. You only have to look at William the Conqueror’s Norman Invasion to see the influence that French has had on the development of English. Get to grips with the most widespread misconceptions about English below and impress even native speakers.

  • You can’t begin a sentence with a conjunction. But you can, as you can see in this very sentence. So many people believe that it’s an error to start a sentence with a conjunction that it’s taught to pretty much every schoolchild. In actual fact, you’ll see plenty of conjunctions at the start of sentences when you check the work of the greatest maverick writers and the strictest grammar obsessive so alike.
  • Paragraphs must be more than a single sentence but cannot exceed a certain length. This is an absolute nonsense as the whole point of a paragraph is to express a single idea in isolation from the rest of the text. In fact, if you only need alone sentence to express this idea, you’re under no obligation to waffle on just to satisfy some non-existent rule.
  • You can’t use a preposition to end a sentence. Well, you can if you want to. You can see it in action right here. It’s become clear that the inventors of this particular rule didn’t know what they were talking about. It’s frequently the case that the meaning of a sentence is clearest when structured so that the preposition is at the end. We’ve done it multiple times right in this paragraph, after all.
  • You shouldn’t split infinitives. This was a rule devised by one man in the 19th century and it seems to have stuck. Actually, though, we’ve been splitting them since the dawn of modern English. Even Shakespeare dabbled in the use of split infinitives from time to time. Those who speak English as their mother tongue do this all the time and no one even notices. You’ll no doubt find a few in this very article.

Watch more misconceptions about the English language:


There’s so much that’s not properly understood about English that you could easily be forgiven for making a mistake here and there. Anyway, you can always use a high-quality online grammar check program and make sure that your writing is perfect. It takes a time to master English to the kind of level that you’re hoping to attain, so you should use every tool at your disposal in the meantime in order to avoid making silly mistakes that you’ll regret later. Discover what are the benefits of using essay checkers here.

Hopefully, these interesting facts about English language peculiarities have whetted your appetite to go on with your language learning journey. When you think about all the intriguing aspects of this fascinating tongue, it’ll really encourage you to keep learning and learning until you become a true master of this important global language. Try to find your own intriguing facts within all the English sentences you read. It certainly won’t take you long to find a few.

Use these interesting facts about the English language to inspire your fellow students and impress your teachers. Become a real English master!