Unusual Facts And Rules Of The English Language

English is one of the most complex languages. There are many grammar rules and within each rule, there are many exceptions. Most of us are not really aware or bothered by such rules and their exceptions when writing in English. However, it is beneficial to get to know these exceptions as much as possible so that it enhances our understanding of English grammar. Some of these unusual rules and exceptions are discussed below.

1. Let’s start with an interesting sentence, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” If you are not sure what is so unusual about that, then it may surprise you that the sentence contains every single letter in the English alphabet.

2. A word beginning with the letter “Q” is followed by the letter “u”.

3. The word “Do” is used to emphasize an action. For example, instead of writing, ”I go there.” You can write, “I do go there.”

4. Do you know that the article “the” has many exceptions? For example, it is not used before names of any country except the Netherlands and the US.

5. Other articles with exceptions are “a” and “an”. They usage is dependent on the phonetics of the noun before which they are placed. Like, “a” is used before the word “user” while “an” is used before the word “honest”.

6. Do you know that the full stop or dot (.) is not required when you write the abbreviation Dr? This happens when the abbreviation ends with the same letter as the word itself. So, it’s Dr for Doctor but Prof. for Professor. Many people are unaware of this.

7. When relationship is written before a name as in “He is Uncle Sam.” Then it is written in capital letter. But, if it is written after that, then it’s small letter. As in, “He is Sam, my uncle.”

8. Finally, do you know of any word that does not contain any vowel? Go ahead, try and guess. Well If you guess “try” then you are right. There are other words like “fry” and “my” which usually end in the letter “y”.

By: CY Lack

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CY Lack is an experienced educator who has been teaching English and Mathematics for more than 15 years. His mission in life is to try to improve the English standards of students in Singapore. He is currently working with a few English language schools in Singapore. For more information, please visit his website at LearnEnglishSingapore1.com.