English is spoken by over 2 billion people in the world and there are more people who have learned it as a second language than there are native speakers. – WTF Fun Facts
Words
WTF Fun Fact – Smellfungus
A smellfungus is someone who is always finding faults or critiques everything. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/smellfungus
WTF Fun Fact – Pull Your Bootstraps Absurdity
Until the early 20th century, the phrase “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” actually meant to do something impossibly absurd. – WTF Fun Facts
WTF Fun Fact – English Adjective Order
When using multiple words to describe an object, native English speakers naturally list the adjectives in the following order: opinion, size, age, shape, color, origin, material, and then purpose. – WTF Fun Facts
WTF Fun Fact – Shibboleth
A shibboleth is any custom or tradition, usually a phrase or even a word, that distinguishes one group of people from another. Shibboleths have been used throughout history in many societies as passwords or means of self-identification. – WTF Fun Facts
WTF Fun Fact – Ablaut Reduplication
There is an unwritten English rule concerning ablaut reduplication, or the altering of the interior vowels of a repeated word. When repeating words, the first vowel is always an I, then A or O if there are only two words, and I, A, O if there are three words. For example, it’s “chit-chat” and not “chat-chit”. – WTF Fun Facts
WTF Fun Fact – Sesselpupser
Sesselpupser is German for those who sit around all day doing nothing or those who work from the comfort of an office chair doing menial work. It literally translates to “chair farter”. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: https://blogs.transparent.com/german/3-lazy-german-words/
WTF Fun Fact – Kummerspeck
Kummerspeck is German for weight gained from emotional over-eating. It literally translates to “grief bacon”. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: https://metro.co.uk/2015/11/23/13-german-words-that-english-needs-5492307/
WTF Fun Fact – Eggcorn
An eggcorn is a word or phrase that is a seemingly logical alteration of another word or phrase that sounds similar, but has been misheard or misinterpreted. An example of an eggcorn is ‘old wise tale’ for ‘old wives’ tale’. – WTF Fun Facts