Eighty-eight
In the standard English counting system (so
no googols, googolplexes or myriads included), every single number higher than
88 has an N in its name. So put another way, eighty-eight is the highest number
spelled without a letter N. Incidentally, you’d have to count all the way to a
billion before you’d need to use a letter B; and no matter how high you counted
you’d never need a J, a K, or a Z.
Forty
Forty is the only number in the English language to have its letters in alphabetical order. The only number with its letters in reverse alphabetical order?One.
Four
Four has 4 letters, making it the only self-enumerating number in English. Bonus fact: there are no self-enumerating numbers in French.
Quadruplications
Meaning “multiplications by four,” the word quadruplications contains, among others, the eight letters N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, and U inside it. No English word is spelled used a longer string of consecutive letters.
Lull
Seventy-five percent of the word lull is the same letter. No word in the English language contains a greater proportion of repeated letters, although a handful of others—like loll, faff and sass—equal it.
Swims
Rotate the word SWIMS, in all capital letters, 180 degrees, and it will still more or less read SWIMS, making it the longest rotationally symmetrical word in the English language. The word dollop runs one letter longer, but its Ls drop below the line when turned upside down.
AND...
Divide the alphabet into two 13-letter halves, from A-M and from N-Z. Then number all of the letters in each half from 1-13, starting at opposite ends—so A and Z are both 1, B and Y are 2, C and X are 3, and so on. This would make W 4, and D 4. I and R would both be 9. And A and Z would both be 1. What does all that mean? Well, it makes wizard one of the longest symmetrically distributed words in the English language, as its letters would form the numerical pattern 4/9/1/1/9/4. Hovels (8/12/5/5/12/8) and evolve (5/5/12/12/5/5) are two more six-letter examples.
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