Portal:Linguistics/Did you know/Queue/2

Hooks
From Wikipedia's "Did You Know" archives:
 * ... that the world's largest mathematical experiment, designed by Brian Butterworth, found women to be faster than men at subitizing?
 * ... that Khmer numerals were the first material evidence of the figure zero as a numerical figure?
 * ... that in the English plural, the letter -s is pronounced differently in words like "cats", "cabs", and "buses", because of a phonological rule?
 * ...that the 2005 movie The Interpreter by film director Sydney Pollack was based on real-life conference interpreters from the United Nations Interpretation Service?
 * ... that Samuel Taylor Coleridge spelled William Shakespeare's last name as "Shakspere"?