annual penance

Well its been two weeks since, I last updated..so here is a language-related selection from the top 100 new facts of the year from the BBC:

• The word "time" is the most common noun in the English language, according to the latest Oxford dictionary.
• Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobiacs is the term for people who fear the number 666.
• English is now the only "traditional" academic subject in the top 10 most popular university courses.
• Involuntary bad language, a symptom affecting about one in 10 people with Tourette's syndrome, is called "coprolalia".
• The medical name for the part of the brain associated with teenage sulking is "superior temporal sulcus".
• Cows can have regional accents, says a professor of phonetics, after studying cattle in Somerset
• Thirty-four percent of the UK has a surname that is ranked as "posher" than the Royal Family's given name, Windsor.
• The clitoris derives its name from the ancient Greek word kleitoris, meaning "little hill".
• Publishers have coined the term "Brownsploitation" for the rash of books that have sprung up in the wake of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code blockbuster.
• The term "misfeasance" means to carry out a legal act illegally.

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