Interesting Facts

14th October 1066 - The Battle of Hastings, Duke William of Normandy and Norman army defeated the English forces of Harold II. 1773 - The first recorded Ministry of Education, the Komisja Edukacji Narodowej (Commission of National Education), was formed in Poland.

3rd March 1284 - The Statute of Rhuddlan was signed and Wales became a territory under the English crown. 1991 - A home video captured three Los Angeles police officers beating motorist Rodney King. (Four LAPD officers were later tried in a state court for the beating but were acquitted. The announcement of the acquittals sparked the 1992 Los Angeles Riots.)

The next English £5, £10 and £20 banknotes will be printed on plastic. (The fiver will be issued first in September 2016, followed by the tenner, which will be issued in 2017, but the £20 note will have to wait until 2020. Their appearance will change too. Sir Winston Churchill will feature on the £5 banknote, replacing Elizabeth Fry, ​​Jane Austen will replace Charles Darwin on the £10 banknote, and artist J.M.W. Turner will feature on the £20 not, replacing economist Adam Smith. Nothing has been said about the £50 note, which features the engineers Matthew Boulton and James Watt. Historical characters have only appeared on bank notes since 1970.  Other people depicted on previous notes have been: Sir Edward Elgar (composer) Michael Faraday (scientist) Sir John Houblon (first Governor of the Bank of England) Sir Isaac Newton (scientist) Florence Nightingale (nursing) William Shakespeare (poet/playwright) George Stephenson (engineer) 1st Duke of Wellington (gener...

New guidelines for school pupils in England state that only phrases starting with "what" or "how" merit an exclamation mark! (This means that children who use punctuation marks in written tests will be penalised unless they adhere to strict rules. I mean, I know I ask people not to use them in every sentence, and to stick to one, but really, this is way too prescriptive. Irk the purists!)

If you ever needed proof that remembering lists of words doesn't mean you can speak the language, here it is. 48-year-old New Zealander, Nigel Richards, is the French-language world Scrabble champion, but he can't speak French. (He is 3 times world Scrabble champion, 5 times US champion, and has won 12 titles in the King’s Cup championship in Bangkok, but became world Champion of Francophone Scrabble, after memorizing all possible words in the official French scrabble dictionary, with two to 10 letters. Throw those vocabulary lists away.)

According to a survey run by GoEuro, women in France and Belgium ranked British men as the most desirable in Europe. (The European survey found that the typical British gentleman is now perceived to be the third most attractive nationality, ahead of the French (in fourth place). Go Euro said, the change in fortunes could be down to English now being the most widely-spoken language. I like to think I've done my bit for the men of Britain.)

English football fans face being breathalysed before being allowed into matches. (Trying to enter a sports ground while drunk is actually a criminal offence, and only fans who appear to be drunk will be tested. The project, which will run indefinitely, was launched at Cambridge United's match against Burton Albion, and if successful, may be roled out to other venues. Anyone found to be over the limit will be given the boot (sorry).)

A new A-Level English course in the UK will look at the work of some more contemporary wordsmiths. (These will include Russel Brand, Dizzee Rascal and Caitlin Moran. Never mind Shakespeare, we won't forget you.)

England Premier League Club, Manchester City, has advised footballers from abroad to watch Teletubbies to improve their English. iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/L_g8AJU7O6E?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen> Alvaro Negedro has a better idea - he's going to teach Manchester how to speak Spanish:- )

Loan words are words adopted from another language with little or no modification.    According to research by Philip Durkin, a senior editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, the most influential language on English is Latin. (According to Mr Durkin English contains around 13,000 words with Latin roots. The next most influential language is French with 6,000 words. (Borrowed - not stolen +Xeb eke  .) In fact, according to Mr Durkin's research, Hawaiian, Turkish, Zulu and Swahili have had more of an impact than Welsh and Cornish. Welsh ranked 30th. Cornish came in at 45th place. Even the word pasty came from France and not Cornwall.) Source: Borrowed Words by Philip Durkin

The word "Ukraine" can be translated into English as "close to the edge". (It can be formed from Russian or Polish with u which can mean "close" or "at" and krai which means "edge" or "border". )

Research carried out at Swansea University suggests that babies who are spoon-fed by parents are more likely to become overweight. (The researchers believe the results of the study show that babies allowed to feed themselves during weaning are less likely to overeat and be overweight as toddlers as they can regulate their intake and stop eating when they are full. Their study also revealed that spoon-fed children were more likely to grow up to be "fussy-eaters" than those left to their own devices. This might explain why the phrase to be spoon-fed something is negative.  It means to be treated in a way that discourages independent thought or action. So don't be spoon-fed your English. Feed yourself.) Source - Journal of Pediatric Obesity

Today is National English Toffee day. English toffee recipe

According to the executive communications consultancy, the Aziz Corporation, you are better off having a "foreign" accent, than a regional British one. (According to UK business leaders, strong regional and "working class" accents can hold people back in their careers, as can "posh" accents. The best accent for a Brit to have is a "neutral one". The worst English accents to have were Scouse, Brummie, Cockney, Geordie and the West Country. If you want to get ahead in business and don't speak the Queen's English, it is better to sound as if you are from America, Europe, India or indeed Scotland than from any English region. Khalid Aziz, The Aziz Corporation ) 

According to best-selling author, Jacqueline Wilson, children from Eastern Europe, Spain and Portugal all have better spelling and grammar than British children. (She receives hundreds of fan letters each week, and told The Independent, that her young overseas fans write more eloquent English than UK kids, she said, "They’re writing in English, and apologising for their English, yet these letters will be more grammatical and spelt more properly than [those from] our own children! Spelling doesn’t seem to be something that happens [at school]. I don’t think it is being taught. Many children don’t even bother to try to write properly, resorting to 'text language'". I dunno wot u r tryin 2 say Jacklynn.)

A school in Middlesborough, in the UK, has drawn up a list of banned words and phrases. (The head teacher, Carol Walker, has drawn up the list to promote standard English in order to improve the job chances of the pupils at the school. Here's the list and the suggested alternatives:- I done that. - I have done that. / I did that. I seen that. - I have seen that. / I saw that. Yous - You lot come her. I dunno - I don't know. It's nowt - It's nothing Letta / Butta etc. - letter - butter etc. Your - Your late should be you're late. Werk / shert etc - work / shirt etc. E was sat there - He was sitting there. Dropping the "th" - "School finishes at free fifteen," should be, "School finishes at three fifteen." Gizit ere - Please give it to me. or Please give me the ... Yes, as anyone who visits my sessions regularly knows, some people in the UK really do talk like this.)

Tinnitus is a word direct from Latin which means “ringing”. (In English it describes a condition where the sufferer hears a constant buzzing, humming or ringing in the ears. This phantom sound goes on for 24 hours a day, seven days a week.)

According to scientists from the University of Auckland in New Zealand, the English language is descended from ancient Turkey. (They go even further to say that French, German and Hindi - originated up to 9,500 years ago in western Asia. The scientists traced the origin of languages classed as Indo-European to Anatolia, an ancient region of western Asia which covers most of modern Turkey.)

Until 1907, it was illegal in the UK for a man to marry his late wife's sister (sister in law). (The law dated back to the English Marriage Act of 1537, passed in the reign of Henry VIII of all people. Rooted in the Book of Levicitus, Chapter 18, the law prohibited marriage between relatives and relatives by marriage in situations when the first marriage had been consummated. But the reason for overturning this archaic law was not due to sudden enlightenment, the justification for the 1907 Act was that a man of moderate means should be entitled to marry his dead wife's sister, where that sister had come into his home to rear his children on account of his inability to pay for domestic help! The whole thing was debated for years, as the transcript of one debate in parliament in the 1870's about possibly repealing it attests, one of the members said marriage to a deceased wife's sister, was a jolly good thing, because it removed the otherwise dire necessity of two mothe...

I was shocked when I read that one of Italy's leading universities - the Politecnico di Milano - is going to switch to the English language. (The university believes that if it remains Italian-speaking it risks isolation and will be unable to compete as an international institution. Giovanni Azzone, the university's rector said, "We strongly believe our classes should be international classes - and the only way to have international classes is to use the English language." I guess it would be cool to study in Milan, but it also means it becomes just one more English speaking university amongst many.) Source