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In Old English, the word WITH meant 'against'. This meaning is still preserved in phrases such as 'to fight with'

Victor Hugo's Les Miserables contains one of the longest SENTENCES in the French language -- 823 words without a full stop

CANVAS, because it was made from hemp, gets its name from the Latin word 'cannabis'

QUARANTINE comes from the Italian word for a 40-day period, 'quarantena, since ships carrying diseases were isolated for that period

A British translation company was voted SERENDIPITY one of the ten hardest words to translate

Of the 250,000 words in the Oxford English Dictionary, half are nouns, a quarter are adjectives and 15 percent are verbs

W is the only letter in the alphabet that does not have just one syllable

A silver mine in Joachimstal (now in the Czech Republic) began minting a coin in 1519 called the 'Joachimstaler'. This became the 'taler' which the Germans called a 'daler' and we call the DOLLAR

Flight recorders BLACK BOXES are usually orange in colour but derive their name from wartime aircraft radar gun sights

George Orwell, author of Animal Farm, is responsible for first publishing the expression COLD WAR