The word 'mortgage' comes from a French law term that means 'death pledge'.
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The phrase 'rule of thumb' is derived from and old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
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The equivalents of the English saying "That's Greek to me" are "This appears to be Spanish" (German), "This is Chinese to me" (Dutch), "It's German to me" (Philippines), "It's Hebrew" (Finnish), "It's Chinese to me" (Hebrew), "Sounds like Mars language/These are chicken intestines" (China).
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In England, in the 1880's, 'Pants' was considered a dirty word.
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Ernest Vincent Wright wrote a novel, "Gadsby", which contains over 50,000 words -- none of them with the letter E!
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The longest word in the English language is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconioses!
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Iceland has been so culturally isolated through history since the Vikings, that compared to other Scandinavian counties, people who speak Icelandic can still read the old Norsk sagas.
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