Weird & Wild English, Part I

Welcome to the Grammar Minute, where we’re saving the English language sixty seconds at a time! I’m Lauren Smyth, and today, I’m going to show you how to impress all your friends at trivia night with a carefully curated selection of interesting English facts. Fact 1 – Only two English words in current use end in “-gry.” Can you think of what they are? [tik tok sound] If you said “angry” and “hungry,” you’d be right! My favorite obsolete “gry” word is puggry, which is a piece of cloth. Fact 2 – The word “dord” was printed in the dictionary for eight successive years in the mid-1900s, but it was a typo and has no actual meaning. Words like this are known as “ghost words.” Fact 3 – Words that are repeated often are known as “crutch words.” If you’ve ever like, you know, like, listened to, like, a young person speak … you can probably guess this generation’s favorite crutch word. That’s your Grammar Minute! Visit thegrammarminute.com for more tips and tricks.