What are the five most frequently used letters of the alphabet?
In order of frequency of use, they are: e, t, o, a, and n.
Which letters are least frequently used? They are: k, j, x, z, and q.
In order of frequency of use, they are: e, t, o, a, and n.
Which letters are least frequently used? They are: k, j, x, z, and q.
In the evening, citizens of the Roman Empire constructed their beds by placing straw into a cloth sack. The straw had to be emptied every night to dry; therefore, the beds had to be remade every night. This practice continued until the fifteenth century, in some countries, even later.
Rather than measuring the time that passes during a meeting, the word minutes refers to the Latin minutus, or “small.” This is because the occurrences of the meeting are meant to be noted shortly and quickly, not that the events themselves are unimportant.
A Fascist general named Gonzalo Queipo de Llano y Sierro is said to have coined the phrase during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). As four Fascist army columns closed in on Madrid, the general described his supporters inside the city as a “fifth column.” The term came to mean any group of subversives trying to…
The phrase, which has come to refer to a completely inebriated person, derives from sailing, but not from the sails, as one might think. In the early 1800s, chains were used to regulate the angle of the sails, and these were called sheets. When the sheets were loose, the boat would become unstable and “tipsy,”…
The word attic comes from Attica in ancient Greece. There, an attic was a certain kind of low story above the main floor. Over the centuries, however, attic has come to refer to any low space above the top floor of a building.
The word petard refers to a type of bomb or mine once used to break down walls and gates. To be hoist is to be blown up. Therefore, to be hoist by one’s own petard is to be, literally or figuratively, blown up by one’s own bomb.