0
The number of words starting with the letter ‘x’ in Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1755.
0
The number of words in the English language that rhyme with silver or orange.
0
The number of times the letter ‘e’ appeared in the 1939 novel Gadsby. Written by Vincent Wright who tied down the ‘e’ on his typewriter but otherwise didn’t cheat, this is an example of a lipogram. It ran to 50,000 words without using any ‘e’s at all and it was a good book by all accounts. Sadly, Wright, who took 165 days to write it – simply to prove that it could be done – died on the day of the book’s publication. Note also, the French author Michel Thaler who published a 233-page novel without any verbs.
The number of Hawaiian words that end in consonants.
1
The number of capital letters in the alphabet that have exactly one endpoint (P).
1
The number of words in the English language that when capitalized are changed from nouns or verbs to a nationality (polish/Polish).
1
The number of common words with five consecutive vowels (queueing).
1
The number of common four-letter words consisting entirely of nonrepeating consecutive letters (rust).
1
The number of letters required to turn the one-syllable word ‘are’ into a three-syllable word (area).
1
The number of UK cities with letters that are all in the first half of the alphabet (Lichfield).
1
The number of letters required to turn the one-syllable word ‘smile’ into a three-syllable word (simile).
The number of common words with four ‘g’s (giggling).
1
The number of letters in the alphabet with more than one syllable (w).
1
The number of words with four pairs of double letters in a row (subbookkeeper).
2
The number of letters in the shortest sentence in the English language (Go!).
2
The number of six-letter words that begin and end with a vowel and have no other vowels between (asthma and isthmi).
2
The number of countries with three alphabetically consecutive letters in their names (Afghanistan and Tuvalu).
2
The Chinese ideogram for ‘trouble’ shows two women living under one roof.
2
The number of times each vowel appears in the word ultrarevolutionaries.
3
The number of words that end in the letters ‘cion’ (coercion, scion, and suspicion).
The number of (relatively) common words that have a letter that repeats six times: degenerescence (six e’s), indivisibility (six i’s), and non-announcement (six n’s).
3
The number of six-letter words with letters in alphabetical order without repetition (abhors, almost and biopsy).
4
The number of words that end in ‘dous’ (tremendous, horrendous, stupendous and hazardous).
4
The English language has four times as many words as the French.
5
The number of vowels in Mozambique.
5
The words ‘abstemious’ and ‘facetious’ contain all five vowels in alphabetical order.
5
The words ‘uncomplimetary’, ‘subcontinental’ and ‘duoliteral’ contain all five vowels in reverse alphabetical order.
5
The number of syllables in the word ‘monosyllable’.
The number of words in the English language with the letter combination ‘uu’: Muumuu, vacuum, continuum, duumvirate, duumvir and residuum.
6
The number of consonants in a row in the words ‘borschts’, ‘latchstring’ and ‘weltschmerz’. Note also, Knightsbridge, which has the most consonants in a row.
7
The number of letters in the word ‘wronged’ – the longest word with its letters in reverse alphabetical order without repetition.
8
The number of letters in the word ‘couscous’ – the longest word in the English language in which you can’t tell visually if it’s been written in all upper case or all lower case letters.
8
The number of letters in the word ‘feedback’ – the shortest word that contains the letters A, B, C, D, E, and F.
8
The number of letters in the word ‘cabbaged’ – the longest word with letters that can all be ‘played’ on a musical instrument (using the notes A, B, C, D, E and G).
9
The number of letters in the word ‘spoonfeed’ – the longest word with its letters in reverse alphabetical order.
The number of letters in the word ‘startling’ – the longest word from which you can keep removing a letter to form new words along the way: startling, starting, staring, string, sting, sing, sin, in, I.
9
The number of words that make up a quarter of all words used in English: the, of, and, to, it, you, be, have, will.
10
The number of letters in the word ‘skepticism’ (the US spelling of the word ‘scepticism’) – the longest word that requires you to alternate hands when typing.
12
The number of letters in the Hawaiian alphabet.
13
The number of words spelled with consecutive letters contained in the word ‘therein’: the, he, her, er, here, I, there, ere, rein, re, in, therein, herein.
13
The percentage of letters in any given book that are ‘e’.
15
The number of letters in the word ‘fifteen-lettered’ making it autological in that it truly describes itself (see also ‘unhyphenated’ which is autological in that it is indeed unhyphenated).
15
The only 15-letter word that does not repeat a letter is ‘uncopyrightable’.
The number of letters in the name of the tennis player, Goran Ivanešević – the longest name of a celebrity that alternates consonants and vowels.
18
The number of letters in the word ‘strengthlessnesses’ – the longest word in the English language with just one (repeated) vowel.
18
The number of letters in United Arab Emirates – the longest name of a country consisting of alternating vowels and consonants.
18
The number of letters in the words ‘conversationalists’ and ‘conservationalists’, which, between them, make up the longest pair of anagrams in the English language.
18
The number of letters in the word ‘overnumerousnesses’ – the longest English word which consists of only letters that lack ascenders, descenders, and dots in lower case.
32
The number of letters in the Polish alphabet (including three variations of the letter ‘z’).
36
The number of letters in the Albanian alphabet (but it has no ‘w’).
The number of letters in the word ‘hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia’, which means the fear of long words.
40
The number of letters George Bernard Shaw believed we should have in our alphabet (and he left money in his will to help bring this about).
72
The number of letters in the Cambodian alphabet.
400
The words-per-minute rate at which American tobacco auctioneers can speak.
812
The number of three-letter words in the English language.
1,000
The number of words that make up 90 per cent of all writing.
1,700
The number of words invented by Shakespeare.
5,700
The number of characters on an old-fashioned Chinese typewriter.
95,940
The number of words in the longest will in history – which was drawn up for Frederica Cook, an American woman. When it was proved at London’s Somerset House in 1925, it consisted of four bound volumes. Incredibly, she only had about £25,000 to leave.
7,100,553
Putting this number into a calculator and then turning it upside down produces the words ESSO OIL.
71,077,345
Putting this number into a calculator and then turning it upside down produces the words SHELL OIL.
378,193,771
Putting this number into a calculator and then turning it upside down produces the word ILLEGIBLE.
53,177,187,714
Putting this number into a calculator and then turning it upside down produces the word HILLBILLIES.
531,607,017,818
Putting this number into a calculator and then turning it upside down produces the word BIBLIOLOGIES.
531,607,018,036
Putting this number into a calculator and then turning it upside down produces the word GEOBIOLOGIES.
531,607,055,076
Putting this number into a calculator and then turning it upside down produces the word GLOSSOLOGIES.