Isn’t it odd ...

… that the opposite of just is unjust, but the opposite of justice is injustice?
… that you can be uncouth, unkempt and dishevelled, but you cannot be *couth, *kempt or *shelleved. These words just do not exist. Incidentally, the three words belong to the same semantic field, but surely this must be a coincidence?
… that, while in English it is indefinable, in German it is undefinierbar, but that while in English it is unacceptable in German it is inakzeptabel?
… that words which refer to something which is near tend to have a ‘clear’ vowel (this, these), whereas words which refer to something which is far tend to have a ‘dark’ vowel (that, those)? If you think this is coincidence, what about French ci and la or Spanish aquí and allá? And did you notice near and far? This is very odd, and difficult to explain, as it seems to break with the principle of arbitrariness in language.
… that when in English you warn somebody not to do something you do what you do in German when you warn somebody to do something? “They were warned not to climb the mountain in such bad weather – Sie wurden davor gewarnt, bei dem schlechten Wetter auf den Berg zu klettern.”
… that in German we use a personal pronoun in the imperative with the non-familiar form ("Kommen Sie!"), but not with the familiar form ("Komm!")?
… that, although you can say "I live in that house", "I live in the basement", "I live in Kendal" and "I live in Bulgaria", when you say I live in it, the house and the basement can be meant, but Kendal and Bulgaria cannot? (Sampson, 1980: 84)
… that The White House in Spanish is called La Casa Blanca?
… that the utterance “I am not here now”, which is absurd in any normal context, is perfectly logical when said on a telephone answering machine? (Yule: 13)
… that, although the English word dandelion is derived from French dent-de-lion, (cf. German Löwenzahn and Spanish diente de león), in French it is not called dent-de-lion, but pissenlit?
… that the stem of French déjeuner and Spanish desayunar, jeuner and ayunar, mean ‘fast’ in the sense of ‘not eat’, i.e. when you have your déjeuner or your desayuno, you finish the period of not eating, you break your fasting. Now it is only a small step to realise what you do when in English you have break-fast. Bet you never realised this? Incidentally, déjeuner and desayuno refer to different meals, something which can lead to some nice intercultural misunderstanding.
… that we spell Galerie but gallery, Komittee but committee, Kalender but calendar, Pavillon but pavilion, brillant but brilliant?
… that while a baker is a person, a cooker is not, and a printer sometimes is and sometimes isn’t?
… that it is "Maße und Gewichte" but "weights and measures" and "Pfeil und Bogen" but "bow and arrow"?
… that catgut (in German Katgut!), a thin strong twisted cord, is made from part of the stomach of animals, but not that of cats? In a novel I recently read, Hurry on Down, the protagonist frequently mentions catgut. Actually, he uses the sentence „I’ve brought the catgut” to confuse others or to justify his presence in places where he has no calling to be.
… that, if you reverse the order of the sounds of dog on a tape recorder, you do not get god? Sounds will always change their shape according to where they occur. (Burridge, 2004: 19)
… that we drink from glasses made of plastic and through straws made of paper? It is not always the words that shift, sometimes they stay still and it is the world that shifts instead. (Burridge, 2004: 76)
… we continue to "dial numbers" on our push-button phones? (Burridge, 2004: 78)
… that although the plural of life is lives, the plural of "still life" is "still lifes"? (Burridge, 2004: 45)
… that the word cleave means the opposite of itself? One meaning of cleave is ‘stick together’, the other ‘split apart’. The reason is that the two meanings originally go back to two different words which subsequently merged. However, the meaning of ‘stick together’ may now be on the way out. (Burridge, 2004: 74)
… that, whereas in English something can be either harmless or harmful, in German something can be harmlos but not *harmvoll?
… that, although we have the contracted form aren’t (for you and we and they) and the contracted form isn’t (for he and she and it), there is no contracted form for am + not, at least not in Standard English. In non-standard varieties of English, there is, of course, the form ain’t (which can be used for I as well as for he, she and it). This form appeared around the same time as the other contractions and was then perfectly respectable, but for some reason or another, fell from grace, perhaps because of its frequency. (Burridge, 2004: 102)
… that in Britain you have the Labour Party, in Australia the Labor Party, and in New Zealand the Labour Party? (Burridge, 2004: 108)
… that although generally foreign loanwords are thought to be used by people who want to impress other people, the computer mavens in German do just the opposite? They avoid the foreign loanword and use the German word, and, instead of saying computer like the rest of us, say Rechner.
… that the Past Tense of speak is spoke, not *speaked, but the Past Tense of leak is leaked, not *loke, while the Past Tense of seek is neither *seeked nor *soke, but sought?
… that strong verbs are weak and weak verbs are strong when it comes to surviving? Strong forms as hove or clomb have given way to weak forms as heaved or climbed, and many of the remaining strong verbs seem to be undergoing the same process (Burridge 2004: 129-30)
… that we know intuitively that a mickle is smaller than a muckle if we do not know the meaning of the words? (Burridge 2004: 145)
… that female names tend to be longer than male names and that the vast majority of male names are stressed on the first syllable? (Burridge 2004: 187-8)
… that language has evolved as the main means by which humans communicate but that each of us can communicate with no more than a fraction of our species because there is a multitude of languages? (Matthews 2003: 37)
… that we speak of "dry wine" (Aren't all liquids ‘wet'?) and "white wine" (although it is rather greenish)?
… that we say "the sun sets" although we know it doesn't?
… that children, under certain circumstances, learn their second language faster than their first? Take, for example, a five-year-old girl from New York going to Tokyo with her parents and playing with Japanese children. She may well learn the language in a year! (Steinberg 2001: 178)
… that assimilation can be progressive or regressive but that examples of the former are found far less frequently? (Roach 2001: 54)
… that the two /s/-sounds in seesaw have very different lip shapes? You can easily observe this effect in a mirror. (Roach 2001: 56)
… that when the first American talking films were shown in Britain in the 1930s, the distributors had to consider putting subtitles on the films because most members of a British audience had virtually no experience of listening to an American accent? (Roach 2001: 64)
… that (as far as we know) there is nothing in the human body which exists exclusively for making or recognizing speech sounds. We would still need our lungs, our tongues, our ears, etc. even if they were not required for speech. (Roach 2001: 11)
… that whispering just does not seem to be used in tone languages? In tone languages, i.e. languages in which pitch is used to distinguish words, an essential part of the meaning gets lost, and communication becomes almost impossible. However, the reverse is also true: If you remove the words and just keep the melody, a considerable amount of intelligibility is preserved. This is the secret of the talking drums in Africa. (Roach 2001: 82)
… that vowels, which are voiced by definition, lose their voice when you whisper? (Roach 2001: 88)
… that we can understand the sounds we produce at all, although the frequencies we produce depend on the shape and size of our vocal tracts and vary across men and women, young and old, tall and small? (Roach 2001: 88)
… that all languages are equally easy – or difficult – for those who acquire them as children? (Widdowson 1996: 84)
… that women tend to speak in a way that is closer to the prestige standard than men do? Nobody is quite sure why this is so. Most other beliefs about men's and women's language have not been confirmed by research. It is not true, for example, that women speak more than men. Almost all research has demonstrated the opposite, that men talk more than women. (Aitchison 1992: 116-7)
… that sounds are learnt by children across languages in a relatively fixed order? Voiceless stops are usually learnt before voiced stops, front vowels are learnt before back vowels, etc. This last tendency is confirmed by the presence of front vowels in words such as mama, nana, papa, baba, tata, dada as common forms for ‘mother' and ‘father' in child language (Roach 2001: 92)
… that everyone knows what a word is, what a sentence is, what a language is – except the linguists?
… that English has no specific word for a male dog, although it has one, bitch, for a female dog, that is has a word for a cow and a bull but no superordinate word for both of them, and that it has a word, palm, for the underside of the hand but not for the topside? (Steinberg 2001: 259)
… that a baker is someone who bakes and a keeper is someone who keeps but a cooker is not someone who cooks? At the same time, a printer may or may not be someone who prints and a cleaner may or may not be someone who cleans. To make matters worse you have the creeper meaning ‘plant' and the breaker meaning ‘wave'. (Widdowson 1996: 56)
… that although sentences like ‘The man opened the door' or ‘John kissed Mary' are prototypical English sentences, they are unlikely to occur in actual speech? (Widdowson 1996: 74)
… that there is a higher proportion of males who are natural left-handers than females? In the USA estimates indicate that more than twice as many males as females are likely to be left-handed. (Steinberg 2001: 315)
… that almost all humans have a left-right-preference, but other animals, including primates such as chimpanzees, do not? (Steinberg 2001: 315)
… that writing was invented in Mesopotamia and then, independently, in China and then, again independently, in Central America? (Jucker 2000: 69)
… that several features of modern American English not present in modern British English still correspond to the language of seventeenth-century England? The American pronunciation of the vowel in dance and path is a case in point, and so is the American pronunciation of the vowel in not. (Jucker 2000: 61-2)
… that in connected speech we tend to insert a sound between two consonants where originally there was none and in the same environment drop one where there was one originally? Thus, the phoneme /t/ is sometimes inserted in prince and dropped in prints. (Davis 2004: 139)
… that all the four vowels of catastrophe are different from those of catastrophic? This, although it looks chaotic, is in fact quite regular and due to the changes caused by shifting stress in English. (Davis 2004: 66)
… that an Englishman calls a huntsman's coat pink although it is red? (Sampson 1980: 86)
… that there is no word in German which rhymes with Mensch?
… that the front of the tongue is farther back than the blade of the tongue? (Davis 2004: 11)
… that the distinctions which children generally learn last are also the distinctions which are absent in some adult languages and the sounds which children learn first are also the sounds which are present in all languages? No languages fail to distinguish /p/ from /d/ and all children learn this distinction, i.e. that between labial and alveolar stops, before they learn the distinction between alveolar and velar stops such as /t/ and /k/ (and thus go through a stage where cat sounds like tat); the opposition between /r/ and /l/ is one of the last to be learnt and is absent from languages such as Japanese; the distinction between front rounded vowels such as /y/ and /ø/ (as in German Tüte and Flöte) from other vowels comes later than the distinction between these other vowels, and this distinction is absent from languages such as English. (Sampson 1980: 123)
… that there is a /t/ in German namentlich, ordentlich, eigentlich? (Davis 2004: 141)
… that wild is pronounced with but wilderness without and wind with but long-winded without a diphthong?
… that "Can you tell me the time?", although a question by its form, cannot only be used as a request and not as a question, but is generally used as a request and not as a question? (Lyons 1981: 166)
… that /h/ rarely occurs in English except at the beginning of a morpheme? (Lyons 1981: 225)
… that the brick-and-barbed-wire structure which divides Belfast into two religious-ethnic groups is called the Peace Line? (Aitchison 2001: 74)

… that for a long time no English loan-word containing <th> was imported into German? This was probably no coincidence but the result of the difficulty of pronouncing any such words. The first word which made it into German on a grand scale was thriller. (von Polenz 1978: 143)
… that the bird which is referred to as robin in Britain, Erithacus rubecula, is not the same bird as the bird which is referred to as robin in America, Turdus migratorius, a bird related to the thrush? (Bauer 2002: 44)
… that you can say "I believed he was guilty" as well as "I suspected he was guilty" and that you can say "I believed him guilty" but not *I suspected him guilty? (Bauer 2002: 53)
… that there are sounds in all languages which are connected with meaning but which can only be heard in one particular word, usually an exclamation? A sound of this kind in English is the so-called dental click which is used to express disapproval, e.g. of a child's behaviour. It is usually uttered twice and in novels often represented as tut-tut. (Davis 2004: 48)
… that whereas in Britain you distinguish between practise (verb) and practice (noun) and license (verb) and licence (noun), in America both are spelt practice in one case but license in the other? (Bauer 2002: 65)
… that there do not seem to be any English words beginning with /jaI/ or /j�I/although /j/ occurs freely in front of all other vowels, both monophthongs and diphthongs? This seems to be an accidental gap in the system. (Davis 2004: 111)
… that the first American English grammar, written by Lindley Murray in 1795, was written in England? (Bauer 2002: 98)

… to realize that English only had seven million native speakers in the 16th century, and very few non-native speakers? Dutch was seen as a more useful language to learn than English. (Bauer 2002: 13)
… that, when we are together, we are rarely silent? (Matthews 2003: 2)
… that Saussure is famous for a Course in General Linguistics that he never actually wrote? (Matthews 2003: 85)
… that balm and bomb, which are clearly distinguished in British English, sound the same in American English, whereas gnaw and nor, which are clearly distinguished in American English, sound the same in British English? (cf. Trudgill/Hannah 4 2002: 37)
… Russian has a word, angushtizaid, for someone with six fingers, that Indonesian has word, latah, for the uncontrollable habit of saying embarrassing things, that German has word, Zechpreller, for somebody who leaves without paying, that Tulu Indian has a word, karelu, for the mark left on the skin by wearing anything tight, and Japanese has a word, bakku-shan, for a woman who looks as though she might be pretty from behind but isn't when seen form the front? (Jacot de Boinot 2005) I wonder if there is also a language which has a word for someone who spends half an hour in a queue without getting their purse out. And I wonder what gender the word will be.
… that Maimonides, the Jewish philosopher of medieval Spain, originally wrote his main treatise in Hebrew letters though the language of the text was Arabic? (Störig 1992: 247). This must be like writing something in German using the Cyrillic alphabet.
… that the manifest influence of the United States on British English is restricted almost entirely to vocabulary and appears to have no effect on the pronunciation of even the most susceptible group, such as teenagers? Even radio disc-jockeys and pop singers only put on American accents when singing or disc-jockeying. (cf. Hudson 2 1996: 43)

… that hardly any English speaker would ever use "Bloody!" as an exclamation? Speakers know that bloody can only be used as an adjective, and we stick to the rules of grammar even at the precise moment when we break the rules of communication by swearing! (cf. Hudson 2 1996: 12)
… that British English (but not in American English) has an /f/ in lieutenant which is not present in the spelling, while American English (but not British English) has an /r/ in colonel which is not present in the spelling?
… that, at least in Standard English, you cannot say "I aren't your friend?" but you can say "Aren't I your friend?" (cf. Hudson 2 1996: 232)
… that (in British English) humour is spelt with <ou>, humorous with <o> but humourless with <ou>?
… that England is called England and not Saxonland? The Angles were – most probably - no more numerous than the Saxons and did not have more military success. Why the country did not end up being called Saxonland remains something of a puzzle. (Crystal 2005: 27)
… that the Anglo-Saxons did not end up speaking Gaelic? They were in the minority and could have been expected to adopt the language of the country. This is just what happened in Normandy, where the Scandinavian conquerors ended up speaking French. And if they did not adopt their language, why did they not adopt more words Celtic? This is what you would expect to happen when invaders impose their language, and this is what happened to English in South Africa, which has thousands of loanwords from Afrikaans, Zulu, Xhosa and other African languages. Why it did not happen with Old English remains something of a puzzle. (Crystal 2005: 29)
… that ‘the last Old English text' (c. 1190), a copy of old English gospels, is younger than ‘the first Middle English text' (c. 1150), the translation of a Latin sermon? There is no clear break between Old English and Middle English but mainly continuity, with gradual transitions and frequent overlaps (Crystal 2005: 107).
… that the monks of Worcester in the Middle Ages requested William of Malmesbury to have a text from Old English translated into Latin – they found Latin easier to understand (Crystal 2005: 114).
… that William I. shortly after the conquest promulgated a charter using English as the language of the document? He himself would not have understood it – a chronicler tells us he later tried to learn English and failed – and official documents at the time were, of course, published in Latin. Perhaps this is as sign of the hidden strength of English against all appearances, which might explain why English survived at all (Crystal 2005: 121-2).
… that in the Middle Ages Latin was taught through the medium of French in England? It was presumably also pronounced and certainly sometimes spelt the French way (Crystal 2005: 155).
… that more than a hundred French words came into English in 1300 and none in 1301? The answer is that we can only rely on written documents (and only those documents which survived) and that many loanwords may have been around some time before they were first recorded in writing. An additional problem is the often unsure dating of documents (Crystal 2005: 154).
… that the word discovering consists of a French prefix and an English suffix sandwiching a French word, and that the word unknowable consists of an English prefix and a French suffix sandwiching an English word (Crystal 2005: 149)? After all, German forms such as downloaden or gemanagt may not be so exceptional as they may seem.
… that English, following the arrival of the Anglo-Normans in the Middle Ages, made so little progress in Ireland that the statutes of Kilkenny had to insist that ‘every Englishman use the English language'? French and Latin were the norms in administration, and, as the language of the people, English was losing ground to French and Irish (Crystal 2005: 202).
… that English was rising in prestige in Scotland much earlier than in England? In England, French was in vogue for the sake of fashion but also found its way into business and politics. In Scotland, English became fashionable after the Norman conquest of England, when the English-speaking noblemen fled to Scotland and were welcomed by the Scottish King Malcolm III, who spoke English. English was fostered by the refugees escaping from the Normans but also by immigrants from Scandinavia and Holland, who spoke a Germanic language (Crystal 2005: 138 + 203). English became a lingua franca in Scotland long before it became a lingua franca in the whole of Europe and beyond, and English became strong because of the French!
… how in popular opinion, the vocabulary of Shakespeare is overrated and that of the Sun underrated? Absurd claims are made of Shakespeare having invented a quarter of the words of the language, or the Sun using no more than a total of 500 words. Actually, this is nowhere near the truth. An estimate of 6,000 words for every issue of the Sun and an estimate of 2,000 words contributed to English by Shakespeare (accessible, assassination, acutely and accommodation being amongst them) is probably much nearer the truth. It is still an impressive figure, and also a very high percentage within his overall vocabulary of about 20,000 words. Probably no one comes near him in that respect. The one who most closely follows Shakespeare in terms of inventiveness is his contemporary, Thomas Nashe, who contributed such modern-sounding words as seminary , plausibility and chatmate . Another myth concerning Shakespeare is the size of his overall vocabulary in comparison to a present day adult's vocabulary. One study using a secretary, a university lecturer and a businesswoman as testees found out that their active vocabulary was somewhere between 31,000 and 63,000, quite impressive figures, higher than Shakespeare's, or at least higher than the number of words Shakespeare used in his plays (cf. Crystal 2005: 315-28).
… that the jurisdiction of the local mining court for the lead mines in Wirksworth (Derbyshire) in the 17th century was written in rhyme? The author, the magistrate Edward Manlove, wanted to help illiterate miners to remember them (Crystal 2005: 357).
… that Keats, in the 19 th century, was heavily censured for making thoughts rhyme with sorts and thorns rhyme with fawns ? People thought that the /r/ in thorns and sorts ought to be pronounced and that therefore this was not a perfect rhyme. (Crystal 2005: 467)
… that the BBC, which had until then maintained a policy of accent purity, in the early part of the Second World War contracted a man with a Northern accent, Wilfred Pickles, to read the news on the grounds that this ‘might not so easily be copied by the Germans'? This decision turned out to be quite popular but also caused a storm of protest. People complained that they were unable to believe the news read in such an accent. Pickles in the end gave up and continued with other broadcasting work up North. (Crystal 2005: 473)
… that the Romantics, although they claimed to select ‘language really used by men', did not use any local dialect at all? Everyone speaks Standard English, and everyone, including the ordinary shepherd, speaks with an elegant command of sentence structure and a large vocabulary. Nevertheless, although they did not portray living dialects accurately, they at least drew the attention of the literary world in England to the fact that dialects exist (Crystal 2005: 487-8).
… that British and American pronunciation are (often) the same when the spelling is different and different when the spelling is the same? Examples of the former are gray/grey , axe/ax , fulfilment/fulfillment, examples of the latter are advertisement, leisure, novel. Words such as honour/honor or colour/color show both processes at once.
… that a boxing ring is square, and that one sinks very slowly in quicksand? (Parody 2004: 15)
… that when the stars are out they can be seen but when the lights are out they can't? (Parody 2004: 21)
… that overtones and undertones are the same thing but overlook and oversee opposite things? (Parody 2004: 21+27)
… that there is no ham in a hamburger, no egg in an eggplant, no dog (presumably) in a hot dog, neither apple nor pine in a pineapple, and that sweetbread contains no bread and isn't sweet? (Parody 2004: 15)
… that the time of day when the traffic is slowest is called rush hour? (Parody 2004: 27)
… that there is no ‘proper' English word for Achtelfinale, and no ‘proper' German word for onside?
… that, in football, a manager (English) is not the same as a Manager (German)?
… that a goldfish is a fish and a house party is a party but a hunchback is neither a hunch nor a back and a turnkey is neither a turn nor a key? (cf. Gramley/Pätzold 1992: 28)
… that you can drink heavily and smoke heavily but not eat heavily? (cf. Gramley/Pätzold 1992: 67)
… that somebody can be said to drink heavily or be a heavy drinker but that you cannot say * the drinker is heavy, at least not in the relevant sense? (cf. Gramley/Pätzold 1992: 66-7)
… that although you can say can't and couldn't and mustn't and shouldn't, you cannot – can't – say mayn't? (cf. Gramley/Pätzold 1992: 131)
… that news is singular and people is plural and that police is plural and United States is singular? (cf. Gramley/Pätzold 1992: 142)
… that exoteric, which means ‘understood by everyone', is a word understood by almost no one?
… that we say the White House but not * the Buckingham Palace? (cf. Gramley/Pätzold 1992: 162)
… that priestess is not equivalent to priest, although prioress is to prior and countess is to count? (cf. Gramley/Pätzold 1992: 261)
… that men use non-standard forms (for example, fightin' for fighting ) more frequently than women and believe they use them even more frequently than they actually do, whereas women use them less frequently and believe they use them even less frequently than they actually do? (cf. Gramley/Pätzold 1992: 272)
… that pass has /Q/in American English but /A ù/ in British English, while traffic has /Q/ in both and father has /A ù/ in both? The general rule seems to be that there is a difference whenever <a> is followed by <s>, <f> or <th> or by <m> + consonant or <n> + consonant: grass , after , rather , example , dance . But it does not quite work out that way. Although about 300 words fulfil this condition, only about 100 are pronounced differently, the remaining ones being identical: gather, traffic, Atlantic, trample, etc. (Gramley/Pätzold 1992: 341)
… that British English has <ou> in neighbour and saviour, honour and valour, savour and flavour, colour and behaviour, it has <o> in anchor and donor, anterior and posterior, manor and professor, and <ou> in labour and colourful but <o> in laborious and coloration? (Gramley/Pätzold 1992: 344-5)
… that American English, while it has burned, dreamed, dwelled, kneeled, leaned, learned, spelled, spilled and spoiled where British English has burnt, dreamt, dwelt, knelt, leant, learnt, spelt, spilt, and spoilt, does not have *meaned? (cf. Gramley/Pätzold 1992: 349)
… that all the season words can be used with or without the definite article (e.g. in summer or in the summer), American English fall cannot? You can say in the fall but not * in fall. (cf. Gramley/Pätzold 1992: 355)
… that there are Native Americans whose English shows interference from an American Indian language although they are monolingual speakers of English? (cf. Gramley/Pätzold 1992: 378)
… that Black English perhaps does not at all derive from Black people - and ultimately from Africa - but from white slave owners and slave drivers - and ultimately from Britain and Ireland? (cf. Gramley/Pätzold 1992: 381)
… that in Black English the Past Tense marker {D} is generally absent (so looked becomes look and applied becomes apply), i.e. the Past Tense is not marked at all, but that this does not happen with irregular verbs (so catch becomes caught ), where the Past Tense is consistently marked? (cf. Gramley/Pätzold 1992: 382)
… that in Black English, third person singular {S} is usually dropped but plural {S} is not? The speakers seem to feel intuitively that the plural marker carries more meaning than the verb marker. (cf. Gramley/Pätzold 1992: 382).
… that the Africa vernacular English, in spite of the multitudinous mother tongues of its speakers, is audibly recognizable as distinct from, for example, Asian English? (Gramley/Pätzold 1992: 424).
… that, in Singapore, the vernacular languages predominate on radio and TV except for the news, which is generally in English? (Gramley/Pätzold 1992: 452).
… that the English word for a sauce made from the juice which comes from meat as it cooks is gravy although it comes from grané? Where did the <v> come from? The explanation is simple: it is a mistake. Because of the writing style of medieval manuscripts, <n> and <u> were often confused, and <u> and <v> were often used interchangeably. (cf. Flavell & Flavell 3 2005: 116)
… that the word paper, although it derives from papyrus, does not mean ‘papyrus'? It does not refer to the ‘paper' made from papyrus but to the ‘paper' made from flax and hemp (cf. Flavell & Flavell 3 2005: 140).
… that in British English the first <e> of interesting is usually omitted in pronunciation but the first <t> is pronounced, while in American English the first <t> is usually omitted but the first <e> is often ‘recovered' instead?
… that Chinese speakers are able to remember telephone numbers better than English speakers? This is explained by the fact that in general shorter words are remembered more easily than longer words, so that Chinese speakers, with shorter digits, have a larger memory span than English speakers, who in turn have a larger better memory spans than speakers of other languages with longer digits. (Cook 3 2001: 84)
… that a native speaker of English can answer the question ‘Is the word blish English?' almost instantaneously? We seem to be able to work through many thousands of words in a few moments. The human mind is extraordinarily efficient at organising the storage of words and their connections. (Cook 3 2001: 94)
… as French-speaking children in Switzerland who learn German at school, and that is High German rather than Swiss German, can in a sense speak with Germans better than with their own fellow nationals? (Cook 3 2001: 162)
… in Vancouver there are more bilinguals with Chinese alongside English than French, despite English and French being the official languages? (Cook 3 2001: 162)
… that Swahili, the official language of Tanzania, is the native language of only about 10 per cent of the population? (Cook 3 2001: 162)
… that anti-British graffiti in Belfast is written in English, not Irish? (Cook 3 2001: 164)
… that the publishers of a modern textbook took exception to the phrase "Good book that", although it is very common in English? The title of the book is incidentally Realistic English. (Cook 3 2001: 208)
… that the word bra, a clipped form of brassière, although it looks French and is French, is not used in French? The French equivalent is soutien-gorge - except in Canada, where it is indeed brassière. (Flavell & Flavell 3 2005: 274)
… that some speakers perceive fluorescent tennis balls as green, others as yellow? (Erickson/Gymnich2006: 37)
… that in Canadian English, the diphthong in wife is not the same as the diphthong in wives and the diphthong in house is not the same as the diphthong in houses? The explanation is this: there is a tendency in contemporary Canadian English to centralise the diphthongs /A I/ and /A U/, but this tendency is only to be found in front of voiceless consonants, not in front of voiced consonants. Thus we get the standard pronunciation of wives and houses, but the typically Canadian form in wife and house, /w « I f/ and /h « U s/ . (Erickson & Gymnich 2006: 106-7)
… how cleverly the German loanword kaput is used in Swahili? It is used in nusu kaput, which, nusu being the Swahili word for ‘half', means ‘narcosis'! (Limbach 2007: 41)
… that in English, to say that you leave without saying good-bye, you say "take French leave" but in French you say "filer à l'anglaise", and that condoms are "French letters" in English but "capotes anglaises" in French?

… that Godot is the title hero of a play, Waiting for Godot, in which he never appears? He has become deservedly famous, but he was not the first. The proverbial Mrs Grundy is a character in Thomas Morton's play Speed the Plough, first produced in 1800. The other characters constantly wonder what she will think or say, as she takes a very narrow, moral view of things. She is somehow to be feared. Thus she made it into the English language: “What will Mrs Grundy say?” (Flavell & Flavell 3 2000: 105)
… that no language seems to use ingressive air stream regularly to produce specific sounds? All our specific sounds are egressive, i.e. with the air flowing outwards. We generally take this for granted although it is possible to produce sounds with the air flowing inwards. You can use it as a method of disguising your voice: if you breathe in and speak at the same time, your pitch gets higher! (McMahon 2002: 25)
… that it is knife/knives, leaf/leaves but stove/stoves, hive/hives and roof/roofs and chief/chiefs? There is no reasonable phonetic or phonological explanation for this. It just is like this. (McMahon 2002: 61)
… that electric, electricity and electrician all have <c> in writing but /k/, /s/ and /©/ in pronunciation? (McMahon 2002: 62)
… that the Past Tense of teach is taught, but the Past Tense of preach is not *praught and the Present Tense of caught isn't *ceach? (McMahon 2002: 90)
… that in Arabic every syllable must start with a consonant, whereas in Hawaiian no consonant is allowed at the end of a syllable? In technical terms, syllables must have an onset in Arabic and must not have a coda in Hawaiian. How do Arabic and Hawaiian then deal with loanwords from other languages which do not ‘fit'? They simply assimilate them. In Arabic, a glottal stop is introduced at the beginning of the syllable, in Hawaiian, either the final consonant is deleted or an additional vowel is attached. If Arabic insists on an onset and Hawaiian does not allow a coda, there are, inversely, no languages which do not allow an onset and no languages which insist on a coda. So a syllable can start with a consonant but need not end in a consonant in all languages. Thus, words like be, tea, two, know, ma, etc. represent the ‘ideal' universal syllable. (McMahon 2002: 106)
… that round can not only be an adjective (a round table), it can also be a noun (the next round), a verb (her eyes rounded), an adverb (go round in circles) and a preposition (round the corner)? Actually, many of the simple English words, more than we tend to think, can belong to more than one word class (love, show, drop, book, house, sweet, free, etc.), and sometimes also more sophisticated words can convert into another category: manifest can be a noun, a verb, and an adjective.

...that in Swedish, the definite article is attached to the end of a word but the indefinite article precedes the word? Thus, the word for car is bil, and, while the car is bilen, a car is en bil.

...that, in Turkish, you cannot respond good-bye if someone says good-bye? There are two words, depending on who is leaving and who is staying behind. If your interlocutor says allahaɩsmarladɩk, you respond güle güle, not allahaɩsmarladɩk. This is not the case when you greet someone. The answer to güanydɩn, `good morning´, is günaydɩn.

… that, in Swedish, there are words, including ‘real words’ such as nouns, which consist of one letter (and one sound) only? Thus, island is ö in Swedish and river is å. The word ö incidentally, is part of the geographical term Faroe. Thus Faroe Islands is, strictly speaking, redundant. It contains the word island twice.

...that, although most of us would claim not to be superstitious, few of us would call our ship Titanic? (Crystal 2007: 130)

… that the word bloody, which caused a storm of protests when first heard on the English stage (in Shaw’s Pygmalion in 1914), was used by Prince Charles in a public statement 75 years later and had been used by Swift (in one of his letters to Stella) 200 years earlier? (Crystal 2007: 131)

… that the word sideburns, which is an eponym, i.e. a word derived from a person’s name, goes back to a US Civil War general whose name was not Sideburn but Burnside? (Crystal 2007: 73)

… that abbreviation is such a long word?

...that a Meerkatze is not a Katze nor is a meerkat a cat, and that a Meerkatze (a monkey) is not the same as a meerkat (a rodent)?

Sources

Aitchison, Jean: Teach Yourself Linguistics. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1992.
Aitchison, Jean: Language Change: Progress or Decay? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Bauer, Laurie: An Introduction to International Varieties of English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2002.
Burridge, Kate: Blooming English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Crystal, David: Words, Words, Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007: 129

Crystal, David: The Stories of English. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2005.
Davis, John F.: Phonetics and Phonology. Stuttgart: Klett, 2004.
Erickson, Jon & Gymnich, Marion: Grundkurs Anglistische Sprachwissenschaft. Stuttgart: Klett, 2006.

Flavell, Linda & Flavell, Roger: Dictionary of Idioms and their Origins. London: Kyle Cathie Limited, 2000.
Flavell, Linda & Flavell, Roger: English Down the Ages. London: Kyle Cathie Limited, 2005.
Gramley, Stephan & Pätzold, Kurt-Michael: A Survey of Modern English . London and New York: Routledge, 1992.
Hudson, R. A.: Sociolinguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996².
Jacot de Boinot, Adam: The Meaning of Tingo. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2005.
Jucker, Andreas H.: History of English and English Historical Linguistics. Stuttgart: Klett, 2000.
Limbach, Jutta (ed.). Ausgewanderte Wörter. München: Hueber, 2007.
Lyons, John: Language and Linguistics. An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
McMahon, April: An Introduction to English Phonology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2002.
Matthews, P.H.: Linguistics: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Parody, A.: Eats, Shites and Leaves. London: Michael O'Mara Books, 2004.
Polenz von, Peter: Geschichte der deutschen Sprache. Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1978.
Roach, Peter: Phonetics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Sampson, Geoffrey: Schools of Linguistics. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1980.
Steinberg, Danny D., Nagata, Hiroshi, Aline, David P.: Psycholinguistics. Language, Mind and World. Harlow: Pearson, 2001².
Störig, Hans Joachim: Kleine Weltgeschichte der Philosophie. Frankfurt: Fischer, 1992.
Trudgill, Peter & Hannah, Jean: International English. A Guide to the Varieties of Standard English. London: Arnold, 4 2002.
Widdowson, H.G.: Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Yule, George: Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.