Language Facts Generator

• [Language fact 1] The most complex character in the Chinese language takes 57 strokes to write. It is a noodle dish.

  Food, Languagesource

• [Language fact 2] The movie “The Wolf of Wall Street” set a Guinness World Records record for most swearing in one film. The movie used the f-word 506 times with an average of 2.81 times per minute.

  Language, Moviessource

• [Language fact 3] Louis Braille was blinded as a boy when using an awl. At the age of 15, also using an awl, he invented a reading system for the blind. It was never adopted during his lifetime, but after his death, it grew to worldwide popularity and is now known as "braille."

  Language, Miscsource

• [Language fact 4] The gender-neutral "they" was used as the 3rd person singular in English until about 1800, when "he" and "she" became widespread to make English more like Latin.

  Language, Peoplesource

• [Language fact 5] ‘Carmen 16’ is a poem which was written by Gaius Valerius Catullus (84 BCE to 54 BCE) is considered to be so sexually explicit that it wasn’t published in English until the late 20th century. It is considered one of the filthiest expressions ever written in Latin, or any language, for that matter.

  History, Language, Peoplesource

• [Language fact 6] Canada's new Governor General-designate (Julie Payette) is an astronaut, spent time on the ISS, speaks 6 languages, did research at the IBM lab in Zurich, played piano and sang with several orchestras, and has helped make space robots.

  Language, People, Spacesource

• [Language fact 7] The name 'orchid' is derived from the greek word for 'testicle.'

  Language, Plantssource

• [Language fact 8] Stalin saved the Chinese written script by talking Mao Zedong out of completely replacing it with full-scale Romanization (Latin alphabets to transliterate Chinese). After the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, Mao wanted a radical break with old ways and thought that China’s beautiful yet complicated and inefficient script was a hindrance to the country’s development. After Stalin talked him out of it, the regime instead simplified many Chinese characters, supposedly making them easier to learn.

  Language, Peoplesource

• [Language fact 9] A Chinese beggar named Cui Xianren whose hands were ruined in an explosion spent a decade designing a new type of two-handed calligraphy. The result was so impressive that China’s largest font maker gave him a design contract with 50 years of royalties and helped to get him off the streets.

  Language, Peoplesource

• [Language fact 10] There is an Antarctic dialect of English, which has developed among researchers in Antarctica who have their own slang and speech patterns. Since this is one of the few linguistically isolated areas in the world, it is being used to understand how dialects originate.

  Countries, Languagesource

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