Spelling facts

Published December 10, 2016

• You can spell out all the numbers from 1 to 99 without using the letter A, B, C, or D.

• ‘You’ and ‘ewe’ are pronounced the same but have no letters in common.

• ‘Io’ is one of the shortest two-syllable words in the English language.

• The most commonly used word in written English is ‘the’. The most commonly used word in spoken English is ‘I’.

• ‘Misspell’ appears frequently on lists of commonly misspelled words.

• More words in English begin with an ‘S’ than with any other letter.

• The longest English word that can be spelled without repeating any letters is ‘uncopyrightable’.

• If you spell out ‘TWELVE’ in Scrabble tiles, their values add up to 12. No other number equals its value in Scrabble tiles.

• There are only two common words that end with ‘-ERY’ — CEMETERY and STATIONERY (writing paper, etc.) All the other ones end with ‘-ARY’ (auxiliary, boundary, dictionary, elementary, honorary, imaginary, infirmary, library, revolutionary, secretary, secondary, vocabulary, etc.)

Published in Dawn, Young World, December 10th, 2016

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