Note from Jess: Thanks for the many comments noting that the "de-" in "debunk" is more about "removing" or "eliminating" false information rather than acting as an intensifier. You're correct, that was William E. Woodward's intent when he popularized the term in his 1923 work, "Bunk."
By the way, "bunk" is in contemporary use, in expressions like "that's total bunk!" And by the by the way, this is discussed briefly in a Seinfeld episode.
I always assumed that the word "tip" came from the convention of tipping your hat as a polite guesture. So rather than literally "tipping your hat" you would, instead, just leave a gratuity. I could be wrong because, the first time I heard the word "precarious" I wrongfully assumed it would be spelled "prickhairyarse"
Allow me to share the legendary story of Sir Douglas Bader, the remarkable RAF ace who achieved aerial victories despite losing both his legs in a plane crash. During a talk at a girls’ school about his World War II experiences as a pilot, Bader recounted an intense battle: “So there were two of these fokkers behind me, three fokkers to my right, and another fokker on the left.” At this point, the headmistress intervened, correcting him: Headmistress: “Ladies, Fokker was a German aircraft.” And with unwavering wit, Sir Douglas Bader replied: Sir Douglas Bader: “That may be, madam, but these fokkers were in Messerschmitt's!”
Same, I grew up in the state of Minnesota, USA and that's how I've always used debunk. Also, though I'd never heard bunkum, bunk is definitely still used, often in something like the phrase 'that's a load of bunk', meaning, what you're saying is untrue or garbage.
But when you debunk a false claim, in the sense that you've attested, you aren't stopping it from being bunk. That is, you aren't making the bunkness go away. You're making it bunk, in the sense of showing it to be false or nonsense. In which case the 'de-' would be acting as an intensifier. At least that's what I think she meant when she described it as an intensifier in 'debunk'. Of course, an alternative possibility might be that, rather than removing the bunkness of the false claim, you are nevertheless causing the false claim to be removed from consideration. If so, you might say that you are debunking in the away-bunking sense...
In French Canadian we have an expression for rich people, Grosses poches. Big pocket. I guess it has early French origins and was narrowed down to Poche-posh for meaning rich.
In U.S. English, we say someone has "deep pockets" to mean not only that they have a lot of money, they are willing to donate it to a cause they support, or just to spend it on their own business' needs.
As an 11 year old boy I was a Ham radio operator, and someone seeking to make contact with anyone could send CQ, CQ, CQ, which someone thought sounded like "seek you, seek you"
My wife is from Iran, her first name is Parvaneh which translates as butterfly. She goes by Parry because "a butterfly is a bug" and she does not want the association.
RE POSH….we were on holiday many years ago, and the couple in the camping space next to us were having a very bad day, and after being berated by her husband for every thing she did (clearly not knowing much about camping), the wife finally shouted out “Piss off,Shit Head” . It became our word for a while, when things were tense…..calling each other Posh did a lot to diffuse situations.
Speaking of great acronyms, there are some great medical ones, my fav is the one for the inherited condition where looking at a bright light like the sun can cause you to sneeze, generally called a photic sneeze reflex, but it's full name is Autosomal-dominant Compelling Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst (ACHOO)
I've just looked up mongooses on Wikipedia and it turns out that they're not closely related to weasels at all. In fact their closest relatives are hyenas.
Love this channel! 🥰 Your discussion on the term 'SHIT' reminds me of a joke: A man and a woman step on an elevator together. The woman turns to the man and sighs, "T.G.I.F." to which the man looks at her seriously and replies, "S.H.I.T." The woman is confused and so she says again, "T.G.I.F!" and the man again responds, "S.H.I.T." Finally, the woman loses her patience and stamps her foot saying, "No, T.G.I.F - you know, Thank Goodness It's Friday?" The man responds with a smirk, "Naw, S.H.I.T. - sorry, honey, it's Thursday." 💩
I am 89, reared by parents who reminded us daily (hourly, minutely?) that how well we spoke would affect how high we could rise in life. Consequently, I have become a language nerd, knowing things like the origins of words like woodchuck, barbeque, and caucus. What a pleasure it is for me to listen to two interesting, educated, and informed people carrying on conversations that go by too quickly. More, please...many, preferably. Is there any truth to Gents Only Ladies Forbidden?
We were brought up in a northern council estate speaking with an 1950s RP accent because our mother knew that when we went to university it would matter. In those days she was correct of course. Even today if you use an RP accent people generally accept your opinions more easily. But I note that on bbc science programmes a lot of folk from astro physicists, biologists, engineering, to archaeology etc. experts tend to have regional accents rather more than, say, historians or philosophers.
The best way to determine whether a word is likely to be an acronym, is to find out if it exists in other languages. Dutch kolf (German Kolbe) refers to the bent or crooked end of a stick of wood, like the part of a rifle stock that gets shouldered, or the curl on a hockey stick. Several sports or games were played with such sticks and were simply called kolf.
Some years ago, on a trip down the Thames in a tour boat, the guide very earnestly explained that 'wharf' stood for 'Ware House And River Frontage'. Er, no...
I'm from rural Western Massachusetts and I grew up saying "that's a load of bunk." My grandmother thought swearing was a sin, but she "cheated" and skirted the rules by changing the pronunciation of common expressions. So g*d d*mn was "gawl darn" and bullsh*t was "cacablooshis." And of course there was "jeezum crow" and "son of a witch."
@@stevedrake6529 Yeah ... I never quite understood the idea that when you replace a "bad" word with another word which _everybody_ understands as standing for that word, you've improved anything. Like, are we talking actual magic here?!
This is simply the densest podcast in terms of content. It’s incredible that they don’t run out of topics and they have such a wealth of information to talk about on each. It goes to show that all language is interesting because each word has a story and that story tells us something about our selves but still it just feels like there should be fewer categories of interesting words, just by like laws of nature. On top of that it’s so much research and they always deliver just incredible fact after incredible fact boom boom boom
I love the NEWSPAPER. Reminds me of two 'acronyms' for airlines in Europe: SABENA for such a bloody experience never again. ALITALIA for always late in take-off always late in arrival. Which was actually true.....
@@stevetrawley3521 At least the US didn't force everyone (millions) to toss their existing B&W TV sets to decode the new color signal. The NTSC solution wasn't the best but it was compatible with the existing infrastructure and deployed base of consumer equipment -- they just had to add the color-burst signal right before the B&W scan line signal. Boom. Done.
a lot of British army soldiers served in India many yesrs ago in Victorian times ... some of the Indian language was brought back to the UK, oftentimes as regional slang also depending somewhat upon where their regiments were based in India ... hence Posh originating from India seems to me a more likely explanation than the one given as posh expanding into lots of dosh
The U.S. army has been notorious for its use of acronyms. There is a scene in the movie "I was a Male War bride" (1949) in which Cary Grant goes down a corridor, trying to figure out the meaning of the various acronyms he finds on the doors. He is puzzled by the one that says, "L A D I E S."
They surely got it from the Romans, like so many things. The Romans were also inordinately fond of these things. A maybe lesser known one is that Cologne (Köln) was originally founded as _Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium,_ and when people wanted to indicate that stuff was "made in Cologne", they put "CCAA" on things. We still have some of those.
Hi Rob. The best acronym I've heard in my life was in the early 70s. As a young man I served in BAOR at Hildesheim. We had some American soldiers visiting en route to Hannover airport. This was at the time that Vietnam was ending and most of the US soldiers were conscripts. They wear a patch that says US ARMY. One of the soldiers told me it stood for " Uncle Sam Ain't Released Me Yet."
And I've heard 'NAVY' explained as 'Never Again Volunteer Yourself', and 'USMC' as 'Uncle Sam's Misguided Children', with a more disparaging explanation of 'MARINES' as 'My Ass Rides In Navy Equipment, Sir'.
The only American I've heard say "aint" is the guy from Mary Popins. I can't give his real name as the last time I did that in a comment, it got deleted by the algorithm.
@@colinp2238 But whenever I mention his name, my comment disappears. I've assume it's because both his first name and the last sylable can be quite rude.
Not false etymology, I don't think, but what you mentioned about word changes reminded me of how "island" didn't originally have an S in it until people combined it with "isle".
Many years ago, I worked with someone who considered "news" to be plural rather than singular. We worked together briefly on a project which was then "sent upstairs" to be reviewed prior to potentially being implemented. Waiting several days to hear the outcome, I would ask "any news?" To which his reply was always "not a new as yet"
13:30: You are missing a step. "Cabala" was the Hebrew term for occult knowledge already in the late Middle Aged (as it still is today, of course). It was borrowed in *this* sense into European languages in the Renaissance. You see it in use in Rabelais, for example (16th-century French). Getting from from esoteric occult knowledge to a secret group of powerful individuals is a very natural leap. The leap from "received" to "esoteric" happened earlier in medieval Hebrew.
Back in high school, someone told me that f--k came from the Latin word meaning "to plow/plough." And I always assumed it was true because it sounded legit, despite not knowing what that Latin word was. So after hearing this episode, I just looked it up. And it literally shares no letters in common. "Arare." Go me.
Bunkum is obsolete, maybe, but bunk is not. "Bunk" is still a perfectly current way of... not saying bulsh*t or horsesh*t. :P "It's just a load of bunk, as it turns out." ...And I don't think Jess quite figured out what debunk is supposed to mean?
After Penn and Teller's show "BS", I've fallen into the habit of calling *BALDERDASH.* which is a perfectly presentable word even in polite company even though it means the same thing.
There is an early story by P. G. Wodehouse where he uses the word "push" as an adjective, very much as we use "posh" today. A possible source for this "push" may be from a Romany word for "half", as in "push-caroon" meaning "half-crown". Thus, it may have indicated something expensive, in other words, very close to our meaning of "posh".
As backup for your theories of some words being claimed to be acronyms; my career in the military was full of mnemonics, or "dittys" as they called them, where a word or phrase was chosen to help the individual service member remember information, especially something very important. The "meanings" of SOS and CQD could definitely be an example. A wireless operator being taught to remember "save our souls" seems very efficient. Then two world wars and a deluge of service members back into civilian life teaching their children and grandchildren little nuggets of military life that get passed down, but possibly slightly altered to the reverse of the original creation.
Talking of spoonerisms, one I love is that killer whales were originally known as whale killers by sailors, and it just switched over time. (and given they are actually a species of dolphin, it makes more sense, even though I know that is basically just down to weird taxonomic rules as they are all cetaceans!)
That's not a spoonerism, though, but, yes, killer whales are whale killers. Since most people refer to all cetaceans as "whales", and even those who subcategorise often include orcas with whales because of their size, it is really a whale killer whale, which is quite a mouthful, and so killer whale makes the most sense. Especially since you don't have to be a whale (or a dolphin) to kill whales. I am sure many of the people who insist that dolphins are not whales also would insist the American bison is a buffalo. In the end it's just arbitrary, and since this is a video about language, everyone should have realised meaning is defined by how people actually use words, not by how someone else thinks they should be used.
@@hakonsoreide And then there's the whale shark, which looks more like a whale but is in fact a type of shark, so a fish rather than a cetacean. The fish in the biblical story of Jonah could be a whale shark: they have a kind of "holding tank" in their digestive tract that, if the fish is a big enough specimen, could harbor a human for several hours...
The explanation I was given when I was at school was that an abbreviation can be pretty much any combination of letters and numbers. An acronym is a fully pronounceable word made up of the initial letters of the original words.
@@michaelstamper5604 Indeed. Acronyms also offer another great opportunity for ignorant people to reveal themselves as such. Popular ones are Quantas instead if Qantas, quango instead of qango, lazer instead of laser and tazer instead if Taser (capitalised of course because it comes from a person's name).
I think both scuba and FBI are acronyms because they are made up of the initial letters of the original words (Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus and Federal Bureau of Investigation). And an abbreviation is obviously a word that abbreviates another longer one (or several other ones), and that could be an acronym, but that could also be fridge for refrigerator for example.
This is a great addition to watching Rob Words, the knowledge and warmth you both have, makes for a great evening watch, and the fact that Jess looks like a baby otter is just a bonus! Keep up the good work!
I love the various terms for "butterfly" as demonstrative of things being name locally, in the far past possibly, and from scratch. There seems to be as many different terms for it as there are languages. Contrast this with the near universality of a word like "restaurant" which was apparently carried by, and important to, travellers.
A SNAFU ca happen in any organisation, not just the military. The next highest 'rank' of stuff-up is the FUBAB [or FUBAR, as in Saving Private Ryan], short for Fouled Up Beyond All Belief/recognition". The worst is a CMF = Classic [or, Complete] Military Foul-up
I hadn't seen CMF. Although in the military I would expect it to be CMFU Another level I learned was TARFU Totally and Royally Fucked Up So the hierarchy was SNAFU, TARFU and FUBAR normally fU, royally fu, and finally FU beyond all recognition
In the seventies, I bought Partidge’s “Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English”. I enjoyed it very much and after this podcast will go look at it again. Thanks. Very enjoyable!
A Danish acrynom is 'gravko' = excavator. It literally means 'digging cow' but stems from a excavation company (GRAVEKOMPAGNIET) which was abbreviated to GRAV KO and painted on their equipment, so now an excavator is known to all Danes as a digging cow (gravko) and it even takes plural from 'ko' namely 'køer', so if you have more excavators you have 'gravkøer'.
An abbreviation, or in this case a contraction, is not an acronym. An acronym is an initialism that is pronounceable as a word. Still a cool story tho!
One of my art school pals was thrilled to find a genuine Thomas Crapper toilet in his flat. He used to show it off to new aquaintances. The name was printed on the back of the lavatory bowl. Oh the joy of 1960s student digs.
As a HAM radio operator who is well acquainted with Morse Code CQ is the signal meaning "seek you" and is used to call a random station. for example "CQ CQ CQ de W1AW W1AW W1AW" would be a call to a random station from the ARRL headquarters station.
I have never heard of POSH as stamped on tickets but I have heard of it as being a mnemonic for sailors to allocate cabins. I have also heard of it used to cross the channel, not in the sense of travelling to India. If it is just a mnemonic, there would not be stamped tickets. We used many an aide-mémoire in the navy such as _"Is there any _*_red port left?"_*
Very doubtful that POSH was ever used in any formal capacity. It was a piece of informal knowledge acquired by the well-to-do seasoned traveller between Britain and India/Far East. A modern day equivalent would be the 'tips' proffered on how to get upgraded from economy to first-class on various airlines.
I've always taken the "de" in "debunk' to mean "remove from". The idea being that one is removing the bunk to make way for more accurate information. Also, i know many people who still use bunk to mean misinformation or lies.
I call bunk on debunk. First (I may have heard you wrong there), 'bunk' for nonsense is still very much in use, and 'debunk' is not a heightening, but refers to the act of driving out the bunk. In no way do I feel that this is an orphan negative. As for the f-bomb: I don't think this is a coincidence, but a potentially very long row of cognates: Swiss German for the verb is "figge", and the same verb can very innocently (though it will draw sniggers from the peanut gallery) be used to stand for 'rub', or 'chafe'. Might have been related to 'beat' at one time, but very much involves friction today. Swiss German is still very close to Middle High German. As with all things Swiss German, disclaimer: True in some dialects, may not be the case in others.
My favorite modern backronyms are from New Jersey's legal weed laws: The Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act (CUMMA) and Cannabis Regulatory Enforcement Assistance and Marketplace Modernization Act (CREAMMA).
One acronym I've been told that comes from the military is SNAFU. I'm told it stands for Situation Normal All Fucked Up. I've loved the RobWords 'casts, they were brilliant but now so much better with Jess - she is simply stunning.
I discovered this channel this afternoon on my day off. I was looking for some content to relax my mind... and I couldn't leave this channel! I watched several videos, super interesting!!! I just found Jess's book on Amazon, and it will be delivered tomorrow 🥰 It's so enjoyable to listen to two such intelligent, curious, and humorous people! Best find of the month! 🎉
Interestingly, the German "Schmetterling" is related to the English "butterfly", not etymologically, but from the sense: The thickened sour cream that is commonly known as "Schmand" (similar to Crème Fraîche) is also called "Schmetter" in some areas in Germany, and this insect was also believed here to nourish on such dairy produce; the -ling suffix was then added to call it someone/-thing that is interested in that or has to do with it.
As my wife and I sailed on a small sailboat on the Chesapeake, we'd have some butterflies flutter by and sometimes hutch a ride with us for a while. SO, of course we called them "flutter-bys". *So much fun* playing games with the language.
I had a cow-orker who dropped f-bombs regularly and often. I ask him if his parents knew he talked like that. His response: “Fuck yeah, where d’ya think I learned it?”
I'm mildly miffed that Rob didn't bring up the German for butterfly, Schmetterling. It has a similar meaning as butterfly, namely "something born from butter", 'Schmetter' being an archaic German word for butter.
My favorite discovery was from a plant name: a dark purple salvia variety called "Nachtvlinder" (which might translate as 'moth' = night butterfly) but made me wonder about the etymology of the word flinder... and the idea that one might smash e.g. a stone to butterflies.
You had to be in the right place (I used to own a couple Fiats; lovely to drive, a pain to maintain, electrical system a cheap copy of J. Lucas). An engineer friend of mine in Silicon Valley spent several years working in Detroit and drove a Fiat. Which dealer would track maintenance periods and so on, would remind him of upcoming service, provide a loaner car while his was in the shop, and when coming back to pick up his car, the service manager would go over all the work done (often extras, as well), and take him on a short post-service drive. The dealer didn't dare have their vehicles show any operational deficiences ... in DETROIT.
Posh in my OED First Edition 1909 says "dialect - The fragments produced by a smash; a soft, decayed, rotten, or pulpy mass; a state of slush. Posh-ice: Ice broken into small fragments
Cockney rhyming slang is an interesting beast, especially as they usually cut it down to just the first part, so the actual rhyme is obscured, meaning no-one outside those in the know can work it out! Example: someone complaining that "Ooh, me plates are sore". To a cockney, this is obviously his/her feet, as "plates of meat" = "feet", but to an outsider?
@@HotelPapa100 to be honest, probably not! Loaf of bread is slang for head, and I realise now I implied I got your reference. I meant that I didn’t, bad language nerding going on at my end! Been a long day! Revise to “I need to use my loaf for this one!”
Port Out Starboard Home was part of the lyric of a song the Grandpa sings in the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and he is using the acronym as well in the song.
Your point being? Clearly the Sherman Brothers, who wrote the music and lyrics for the film, didn't bother to check whether there was any truth in the story before they used it. And why would they? They where writing a comic song, not an etymology thesis.
@@youngmistergrace3378 I think you mistook my post totally. I was sharing a fond memory that was associated with what the speakers were talking about. I made no claim of validity. YMG, you might want to unwad your panties.
I think the point is that the movie - released in the mid-1960s - popularised the false etymology. My suspicion is that the Sherman brothers knew it was a false etymology, since the comedic song was written for the character of a senile (bordering on deranged) old man. But this didn’t stop viewers of the movie from believing that they had learnt something true.
German for butterfly is _Schmetterling._ German Wikipedia says _Die deutsche Bezeichnung „Schmetterling“, 1501 erstmals belegt, kommt vom slawischstämmigen ostmitteldeutschen Wort Schmetten (das heißt Schmand, Rahm), von dem einige Arten oft angezogen werden._ (The German name “butterfly”, first documented in 1501, comes from the Slavic East-Central German word Schmetten (i.e. sour cream, cream), to which some species are often attracted.)
The organisation I work for is one of those where words have been fiddled with until they made a decent acronym (FACES - the Family, Adult & Community Education Service). I also enjoy recursive acronyms, such as GNU (GNU's Not Unix) or MiNT (originally MiNT is Not TOS, but it became MiNT is Now TOS later when it replaced TOS). I heard the tips one on a walking history tour in London, where it stood for To Insure Prompt Service in the 17th Century Coffee Houses. Anyway, fun episode, ta!
The 'choke' in an artichoke is a mass of sort of hairy fluff in the centre just above the tasty part. It is inedible and has to be removed before cooking. Presumably it is called this because it would choke someone if left in.
Depending on preparation it IS left in, and the eater has to remove it by hemselves. It's also tricky, because in very young artichokes the lower part of the florets (this is what the hairy bits are) is delicate to eat, but you by all means want to avoid the needly bits.
Here in Germany we have a collection of funny bacronyms, designed to make fun of something. I bet Rob has heard of these? For example the popular car from Volkswagen "Golf", written as VW Golf, stands for "Völlig wertloses Gefährt ohne logische Funktion" (completely worthless vehicle without logical function) or BMW stands for "Bring mehr Werkzeug" (bring more tools). Sometimes these are just too close to the truth, as with SAP (the software) which stands for "Schlechtestes aller Programme" (crappiest of all programs). I once had an excel sheet full of those things which could be quite long at times (Yamaha for "Yeti auf Moped am Himalaya abgestürzt" (Yeti with motorbike crashed at Himalaya)).
I think that the threat off having your fingers cut of was relevant at the time and was reported by the King. Large groups of archers acting under their Captains would hold their hands up to show readiness or unready or other signals ( No arrows or number of arrows). The Luttrell Psalter (13C) shows a left handed archer raising his fingers in salute ( to acknowledge a good shot?).
@@carolinejames7257 The explanation I heard (and enjoyed) was that when scurvy was finally understood it was combatted with fruit high in vitamin C. The best fruit for which is lemon - but the British had no territories that were good for lemon production (the Spanish held those). So in the Atlantic we used limes and the Indian Ocean, Asia and Australasia we used pomegranates. Hence the Americans call us limeys and the Aussies call us pommies.
@@wilsonwombat3456 I haven't heard that one before; that is, I've heard wog (though rarely these days, it seems to have faded away) but not that it was an acronym. To me, that seems far too neat and is likely a folk etymology, especially since it was mostly used (here in Oz) to describe Europeans from around the Mediterranean, mostly Greeks and Italians. I don't know the etymology of the word, but I recall hearing once that it was a contraction of golliwog. I'm dubious about that one too, at least as it was used here.
@@carolinejames7257 If you live in Melbourne, some Mediterraneans wear the term 'wog' like a badge with pride. Often used in comedies on stage and tv. There's a few origin stories, like lexicographer F.C. Bowen noted it in 1929 referring to Indians, the British called Chinese in Hong Kong wogs, etc, though I have never heard of southern or eastern asians being called it at all. Then there's it being used in reference to sickness as in "I've got a wog ".
I first saw the "explanation" of the flutterby/butterfly story in a "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" strip. They also claimed in that same strip that "Intoxicated" was a Native American word meaning "Shot with a poisoned arrow". Usually, I could not believe it. And I loved that story about Sir Douglas Bader, below.
Can't imagine there were many return tickets to India sold. People who went surely had bigger plans than a few weeks hollibobs. Do something much less involved, like catch a train today, and, you'll have separate tickets for each direction, with an specific seat allocation. The obvious thing would be to look at ship's manifests & see if people were actually getting cabins on alternate sides. Acronyms are also the bread & butter of Telegrams, so wires to travel agents would be the most likely place to find p.o.s.h. in use. I do like the Urdu explanation though. Online translators throw up "clad" as the most literal translation of "push". It's in the right territory to be a loan word, like dobi, mufti & pyjamas. It still has stronger connotations with appearance than wealth & the Romany "half" seems ill fitted to express a superlative anything. An Urdu loan word would also be ripe for the creation of a backronym, near but not in....
Regarding debunk, in Portuguese it means to win (a prize or bet), and in Brazil also means "dethrone" the favourite (win against the odds). Interestingly enough, the word came to Portuguese from Italian "Banca" (bank), the place put and take money from, but the Italians took the word from Germanic "Bank". So, in short, debunk in Portuguese came from des + banco + ar (desbancar), or dis (Latim removing) + Bank (Germanic noun) + ar (suffix for 'action of' - bancar meaning banking/funding), or taking from the bank.
When I was learning Morse code, I was told that C.Q. was a way to say in Morse "seek you", but could be transmitted with fewer letters, like when using lol or idk or iirc in texting.
In French, tip is « pourboire », which translates as « for drinking ». You’re basically paying a drink to your waiter. I always thought that it was similar for tip, something relating a tipping a glass…
I design security circuits for chips. Amongst those circuits was the 'Secure Hardware Integrity Test'. That is where that words came from. I invented it.
Goodness me, what is wrong with you two? The last video was all about people's stools and now there's today's potty mouthed venture. That said, I genuinely misheard you say vowel shift, I thought you said bowel shift. 💩
Thank you for your videos, they are very informative and I have enjoyed all that I have watched. I look forward to any future videos you might make, thanks!
"mod" meaning courage makes sense - cognate with German Mut and Dutch moed - didn't know that derivation of wormwood, but I did know that etymologically speaking, wormwood and vermouth are brethren.
I had a conversation online with someone who was trying to claim that News was "news, entertainment, weather and sports", and that it described the order in which things were presented on television or in the papers. I responded with "the N in news can't stand for News. That would be an infinite loop."
Butterfly is one of those rare words that translate very differently in many languages. Vlinder (Dutch), schmetterling (German), farfalla (Italian), papillon (French), mariposa (Spanish)...
As a British folk singer of several decades' standing, I'm always intrigued by the so-called folk process, whereby songs evolve by being misremembered by singers. One of my favourite examples is 'The Lowlands Low'. Bear with me a while! The original English version is something like 'I have a little ship in the North Countree / And the name that she has is the Golden Vanitee / As she sails upon the Lowlands low'. The song crossed the Atlantic and by the time it reached the Appalachians it had morphed into 'The Merry Golden Tree / And she sailed upon the low and lonesome sea'. Just to complicate things, in the English song she gets into a fight with 'the Spanish Galilee'!
SOS & CQD [I'll try to remember some research I did a few years ago] In the early years of radio, Marconi set up a company which provided equipment and operators to ships. As part of this, his radio signals (including CQD) were protected as intellectual property and could only be used by his employees. By 1908 there were other companies set up in competition with Marconi, and a meeting was held between these companies to standardise radio signals, amongst these was SOS, which was chosen for it's ability to be recognisable through the noise and static. As Jess said these were radio signals and the individual letters had no meaning. I believe that the signals are meant to be sent as a singe character and not as individual letters. It might be interesting to see when the first backronym for SOS was used. As an aside, the radio operators on the Titanic went against the rules in sending both CQD and SOS calls as this would have meant attempting to make calls to non-Marconi stations.
I found it really amusing the part of a mongoose being so similar to geese. And that is because in Spanish, mongoose is mangosta, which is very similar to langosta (a lobster) and then you have mangostino (mangosteen the fruit) and langostino (a large shrimp). But nowhere near a goose (ganso). So, there you have it, that's why people get lost in translation.
One group of letter that no longer means anything is ECHL. It is a minor professional hockey league. It used to mean the East Coast Hockey League. It cooperated with the West Coast Hockey League (WCHL), they both were a farm league for the AHL, American Hockey League which itself is a farm league of the NHL. In 2003 the West Coast Hockey League folded and the East Coast Hockey League expanded to include the old WCHL teams. Since they're no longer only East of the Mississippi, they just kept the ECHL but it no longer means anything.
Note from Jess: Thanks for the many comments noting that the "de-" in "debunk" is more about "removing" or "eliminating" false information rather than acting as an intensifier. You're correct, that was William E. Woodward's intent when he popularized the term in his 1923 work, "Bunk."
I was just about to do that, too! HaHaHa Glad to know that I wasn't wrong.
I don't care for the term debunk and don't use it, but I love referring to silly talk as bunk!
By the way, "bunk" is in contemporary use, in expressions like "that's total bunk!" And by the by the way, this is discussed briefly in a Seinfeld episode.
I always assumed that the word "tip" came from the convention of tipping your hat as a polite guesture. So rather than literally "tipping your hat" you would, instead, just leave a gratuity. I could be wrong because, the first time I heard the word "precarious" I wrongfully assumed it would be spelled "prickhairyarse"
@@JasonKatsanisyup. I use it regularly. Along with malarkey.
Allow me to share the legendary story of Sir Douglas Bader, the remarkable RAF ace who achieved aerial victories despite losing both his legs in a plane crash. During a talk at a girls’ school about his World War II experiences as a pilot, Bader recounted an intense battle:
“So there were two of these fokkers behind me, three fokkers to my right, and another fokker on the left.”
At this point, the headmistress intervened, correcting him:
Headmistress: “Ladies, Fokker was a German aircraft.”
And with unwavering wit, Sir Douglas Bader replied:
Sir Douglas Bader: “That may be, madam, but these fokkers were in Messerschmitt's!”
A lovely story ♡ thank u
Bader lost both his legs after showing off in an air stunt after the war. He certainly had both his legs during it.
@@andrewbowman4611 1931 (when he crashed) is before the war he famously fought in
I don’t even care if this story is true-it made me laugh out loud.
Sorry, that’s not true. Fokker was Dutch, not German. Even if you know nothing about aviation, 30 seconds with Google would tell you that.
I love the way Rob looks distinctly uncomfortable hearing and saying swear words and Jess doesn't seem to give a **** ; well you know what I mean...
Well, she did write the book on it!
Yes, I noticed his flushed face.
@@rodgervsaffell2085 It's a bit cute
And yet, he has no problem discussing how much butterfly excrement it would take to cover a piece of toast.
I always thought that tip came from tipping your cap or your hat to get coins put in it
I've always heard "debunk" used as a verb meaning "to refute or disprove false claims". Definitely an anti-bunk word, not an intensifier.
Correct. this is the only sense in which I have ever heard it used (UK).
That's how I've heard it too.
You can't debunk Asheville. I go to Asheville often; I went there today and bought some bread.
Same, I grew up in the state of Minnesota, USA and that's how I've always used debunk. Also, though I'd never heard bunkum, bunk is definitely still used, often in something like the phrase 'that's a load of bunk', meaning, what you're saying is untrue or garbage.
But when you debunk a false claim, in the sense that you've attested, you aren't stopping it from being bunk. That is, you aren't making the bunkness go away. You're making it bunk, in the sense of showing it to be false or nonsense. In which case the 'de-' would be acting as an intensifier. At least that's what I think she meant when she described it as an intensifier in 'debunk'.
Of course, an alternative possibility might be that, rather than removing the bunkness of the false claim, you are nevertheless causing the false claim to be removed from consideration. If so, you might say that you are debunking in the away-bunking sense...
Right. Not a good sign that they start off their lesson getting it completely wrong!
In French Canadian we have an expression for rich people, Grosses poches. Big pocket. I guess it has early French origins and was narrowed down to Poche-posh for meaning rich.
Now that is an interesting idea.
That's the most credible origin for "posh" that I've heard so far.
I was thinking during the vid. that 'posh' sounds very French in origin and still think so.
In U.S. English, we say someone has "deep pockets" to mean not only that they have a lot of money, they are willing to donate it to a cause they support, or just to spend it on their own business' needs.
@@brianarbenz1329 We have something similar in the UK. We say someone has "deep pockets and short arms" Meaning someone is a miser.
As an 11 year old boy I was a Ham radio operator, and someone seeking to make contact with anyone could send CQ, CQ, CQ, which someone thought sounded like "seek you, seek you"
and spawned an instant messaging app, ICQ.
My wife is from Iran, her first name is Parvaneh which translates as butterfly. She goes by Parry because "a butterfly is a bug" and she does not want the association.
RE POSH….we were on holiday many years ago, and the couple in the camping space next to us were having a very bad day, and after being berated by her husband for every thing she did (clearly not knowing much about camping), the wife finally shouted out “Piss off,Shit Head” . It became our word for a while, when things were tense…..calling each other Posh did a lot to diffuse situations.
🤣
I am going to use this word, in this sense you are brilliant sir.
Mam
Speaking of great acronyms, there are some great medical ones, my fav is the one for the inherited condition where looking at a bright light like the sun can cause you to sneeze, generally called a photic sneeze reflex, but it's full name is Autosomal-dominant Compelling Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst (ACHOO)
I love it! I have that happen to me and I have always called it sun-sneezing since looking into bright sunlight is often a trigger for me.
The name for a person who keeps Hawks and Falcons is a Falconer - not a Hawker - unless they travel around selling birds . ..
🤣
Anti-Hawk bigotry!
I haven't gotten to that part, but does Jess know what a jess is?
Falconer for log-winged falcons, austringer for short-winged hawks.
@@pierreabbat6157 That would be ironic that someone with the name Jess, wouldn't know what a Falconer is.
Hawking falcons!
Etymology nerd here. I'm in love with this show. Host repoire and flowing banter is engaging.
Thank you for tuning in!
Yes the *rapport* between the hosts is great
@@wardsdotnetAh. Was going to ask what "repoire" was...
I've just looked up mongooses on Wikipedia and it turns out that they're not closely related to weasels at all. In fact their closest relatives are hyenas.
But they LOOK more like weasels than hyenas.
Interesting, thank you!
They're mongeese aren't they?
It's so pleasant listening to two eminently articulate people chat. Thanks!
Love this channel! 🥰 Your discussion on the term 'SHIT' reminds me of a joke:
A man and a woman step on an elevator together. The woman turns to the man and sighs, "T.G.I.F." to which the man looks at her seriously and replies, "S.H.I.T."
The woman is confused and so she says again, "T.G.I.F!" and the man again responds, "S.H.I.T."
Finally, the woman loses her patience and stamps her foot saying, "No, T.G.I.F - you know, Thank Goodness It's Friday?"
The man responds with a smirk, "Naw, S.H.I.T. - sorry, honey, it's Thursday." 💩
Growing up in England we often said OFIT, Oh F*** It’s Thursday!
@@BrinToo lol! 🤣 I'll have to remember that one the next time I forget there's still a whole other working day left!
I had learned the TGIF companion term S.H.I.T. as meaning "sure happy it's Thursday".
In Bootcamp, first 'acronym' they taught us was Never Again Volunteer Yourself.
I am 89, reared by parents who reminded us daily (hourly, minutely?) that how well we spoke would affect how high we could rise in life. Consequently, I have become a language nerd, knowing things like the origins of words like woodchuck, barbeque, and caucus. What a pleasure it is for me to listen to two interesting, educated, and informed people carrying on conversations that go by too quickly. More, please...many, preferably. Is there any truth to Gents Only Ladies Forbidden?
We were brought up in a northern council estate speaking with an 1950s RP accent because our mother knew that when we went to university it would matter. In those days she was correct of course. Even today if you use an RP accent people generally accept your opinions more easily.
But I note that on bbc science programmes a lot of folk from astro physicists, biologists, engineering, to archaeology etc. experts tend to have regional accents rather more than, say, historians or philosophers.
The best way to determine whether a word is likely to be an acronym, is to find out if it exists in other languages. Dutch kolf (German Kolbe) refers to the bent or crooked end of a stick of wood, like the part of a rifle stock that gets shouldered, or the curl on a hockey stick. Several sports or games were played with such sticks and were simply called kolf.
Some years ago, on a trip down the Thames in a tour boat, the guide very earnestly explained that 'wharf' stood for 'Ware House And River Frontage'. Er, no...
Yes. Everyone knows it means 'Klingon who can't fight melee worth a tosh.'
I'm from rural Western Massachusetts and I grew up saying "that's a load of bunk." My grandmother thought swearing was a sin, but she "cheated" and skirted the rules by changing the pronunciation of common expressions. So g*d d*mn was "gawl darn" and bullsh*t was "cacablooshis." And of course there was "jeezum crow" and "son of a witch."
I knew my mother was really mad when she said dagnabit or pistol shot 😂
@@stevedrake6529 Yeah ... I never quite understood the idea that when you replace a "bad" word with another word which _everybody_ understands as standing for that word, you've improved anything. Like, are we talking actual magic here?!
Well, it's TECHNICALLY not swearing so...
I recall once my mother called me a SOB. I answered "well you got that right". I won that one :)
My dad was fond of saying “Cripes all Friday” . . . .
I used to work with a woman named Crapper. Her husband told me that Thomas Crapper was an ancestor of his, and who am I to doubt him.
This is simply the densest podcast in terms of content. It’s incredible that they don’t run out of topics and they have such a wealth of information to talk about on each. It goes to show that all language is interesting because each word has a story and that story tells us something about our selves but still it just feels like there should be fewer categories of interesting words, just by like laws of nature. On top of that it’s so much research and they always deliver just incredible fact after incredible fact boom boom boom
Using 'half a penny' to denote great wealth. What I call British understatement.
As regards SOS it seems likely that the 'Save our souls' is a backformation as a mnemonic for the new morse signal.
I love the NEWSPAPER.
Reminds me of two 'acronyms' for airlines in Europe:
SABENA for such a bloody experience never again.
ALITALIA for always late in take-off always late in arrival. Which was actually true.....
Glorioso
Or the early analogue US TV standard, NTSC = Never Twice the Same Colour
@@stevetrawley3521 At least the US didn't force everyone (millions) to toss their existing B&W TV sets to decode the new color signal. The NTSC solution wasn't the best but it was compatible with the existing infrastructure and deployed base of consumer equipment -- they just had to add the color-burst signal right before the B&W scan line signal. Boom. Done.
My guess for NEWSPAPER would be more on a line of someone in the marketing department trying to be a bit too clever.
@@lohphat Strange. I seem to recall B&W TV sets showing color programming just fine over here in the PAL world.
a lot of British army soldiers served in India many yesrs ago in Victorian times ... some of the Indian language was brought back to the UK, oftentimes as regional slang also depending somewhat upon where their regiments were based in India ... hence Posh originating from India seems to me a more likely explanation than the one given as posh expanding into lots of dosh
Wearing white needs a lot of care by a lot of stuff
The U.S. army has been notorious for its use of acronyms. There is a scene in the movie "I was a Male War bride" (1949) in which Cary Grant goes down a corridor, trying to figure out the meaning of the various acronyms he finds on the doors. He is puzzled by the one that says, "L A D I E S."
They surely got it from the Romans, like so many things. The Romans were also inordinately fond of these things. A maybe lesser known one is that Cologne (Köln) was originally founded as _Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium,_ and when people wanted to indicate that stuff was "made in Cologne", they put "CCAA" on things. We still have some of those.
Is that "Lasses And Dames In Embarrassing Sircumstances"
Hi Rob. The best acronym I've heard in my life was in the early 70s. As a young man I served in BAOR at Hildesheim. We had some American soldiers visiting en route to Hannover airport. This was at the time that Vietnam was ending and most of the US soldiers were conscripts. They wear a patch that says US ARMY. One of the soldiers told me it stood for " Uncle Sam Ain't Released Me Yet."
And I've heard 'NAVY' explained as 'Never Again Volunteer Yourself', and 'USMC' as 'Uncle Sam's Misguided Children', with a more disparaging explanation of 'MARINES' as 'My Ass Rides In Navy Equipment, Sir'.
The only American I've heard say "aint" is the guy from Mary Popins. I can't give his real name as the last time I did that in a comment, it got deleted by the algorithm.
@@KenFullman Gor bless ya, that was Dick van Dyke played Bert the chimney sweep.
@@colinp2238 But whenever I mention his name, my comment disappears. I've assume it's because both his first name and the last sylable can be quite rude.
@@KenFullman Dick van Dyke is the actor's name, his full name is Richard Wayne van Dyke.
"World Wide Web" has three syllables, but "www" for short has nine syllables.
Yes, it's silly.
"GSW" (four syllables) is short for "gunshot wound" (three syllables).
@@davidhoward4715 Actually, five syllables - "gee, ess, dub, bull, you".
I have heard it pronounced as "dubdubdub". I like that.
@@HotelPapa100 that's how I've been saying it since the WWW was first around. Dubdubdub is so much easier!
"we got to indecent fingers, can we move on?..."
Lol best thing Rob has ever said!
Not false etymology, I don't think, but what you mentioned about word changes reminded me of how "island" didn't originally have an S in it until people combined it with "isle".
I think "island" must correspond to the German "Eiland" whereas "isle" corresponds to "Insel".
@@KaiHenningsen Correct.
Many years ago, I worked with someone who considered "news" to be plural rather than singular. We worked together briefly on a project which was then "sent upstairs" to be reviewed prior to potentially being implemented. Waiting several days to hear the outcome, I would ask "any news?" To which his reply was always "not a new as yet"
Thinking all words that end in 's' are plurals is a surefire sign that a person is a bit ignorant. There are many other such signs.
13:30: You are missing a step. "Cabala" was the Hebrew term for occult knowledge already in the late Middle Aged (as it still is today, of course). It was borrowed in *this* sense into European languages in the Renaissance. You see it in use in Rabelais, for example (16th-century French). Getting from from esoteric occult knowledge to a secret group of powerful individuals is a very natural leap. The leap from "received" to "esoteric" happened earlier in medieval Hebrew.
Back in high school, someone told me that f--k came from the Latin word meaning "to plow/plough." And I always assumed it was true because it sounded legit, despite not knowing what that Latin word was. So after hearing this episode, I just looked it up. And it literally shares no letters in common. "Arare." Go me.
Now, how did the Japanese get to know this word... ;-)
Bunkum is obsolete, maybe, but bunk is not. "Bunk" is still a perfectly current way of... not saying bulsh*t or horsesh*t. :P
"It's just a load of bunk, as it turns out."
...And I don't think Jess quite figured out what debunk is supposed to mean?
I know NYers who regularly use bunkum. Not obsolete.
After Penn and Teller's show "BS", I've fallen into the habit of calling *BALDERDASH.* which is a perfectly presentable word even in polite company even though it means the same thing.
'Bunk weed' was common slang when I was a kid for crappy pot
There is an early story by P. G. Wodehouse where he uses the word "push" as an adjective, very much as we use "posh" today. A possible source for this "push" may be from a Romany word for "half", as in "push-caroon" meaning "half-crown". Thus, it may have indicated something expensive, in other words, very close to our meaning of "posh".
My father jokingly calls asparagus Sparrow Grass, so maybe that is a survival of when it was named that, or maybe its a recoining.
The CQ of CQD is used as a general call. Among some radio amateurs, it was supposedly a phonetic "Seek You"
CQ CQ CQ Calling CQ
The signal SOS was never three letters, it was a complete signal easy to recognise by ear.
You say you're going to talk about that other rude word in the future. Well, I'll see you next Tuesday!
As backup for your theories of some words being claimed to be acronyms; my career in the military was full of mnemonics, or "dittys" as they called them, where a word or phrase was chosen to help the individual service member remember information, especially something very important. The "meanings" of SOS and CQD could definitely be an example. A wireless operator being taught to remember "save our souls" seems very efficient. Then two world wars and a deluge of service members back into civilian life teaching their children and grandchildren little nuggets of military life that get passed down, but possibly slightly altered to the reverse of the original creation.
Talking of spoonerisms, one I love is that killer whales were originally known as whale killers by sailors, and it just switched over time. (and given they are actually a species of dolphin, it makes more sense, even though I know that is basically just down to weird taxonomic rules as they are all cetaceans!)
I guess people would draw the line at calling a sperm whale a 'type of dolphin' ;-)
That's not a spoonerism, though, but, yes, killer whales are whale killers. Since most people refer to all cetaceans as "whales", and even those who subcategorise often include orcas with whales because of their size, it is really a whale killer whale, which is quite a mouthful, and so killer whale makes the most sense. Especially since you don't have to be a whale (or a dolphin) to kill whales.
I am sure many of the people who insist that dolphins are not whales also would insist the American bison is a buffalo. In the end it's just arbitrary, and since this is a video about language, everyone should have realised meaning is defined by how people actually use words, not by how someone else thinks they should be used.
@@hakonsoreide And then there's the whale shark, which looks more like a whale but is in fact a type of shark, so a fish rather than a cetacean. The fish in the biblical story of Jonah could be a whale shark: they have a kind of "holding tank" in their digestive tract that, if the fish is a big enough specimen, could harbor a human for several hours...
Love the video. I’m amazed by the number of people that call abbreviations acronym. Scuba is an acronym while FBI is an abbreviation.
The explanation I was given when I was at school was that an abbreviation can be pretty much any combination of letters and numbers. An acronym is a fully pronounceable word made up of the initial letters of the original words.
@@michaelstamper5604 Indeed. Acronyms also offer another great opportunity for ignorant people to reveal themselves as such. Popular ones are Quantas instead if Qantas, quango instead of qango, lazer instead of laser and tazer instead if Taser (capitalised of course because it comes from a person's name).
I think both scuba and FBI are acronyms because they are made up of the initial letters of the original words (Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus and Federal Bureau of Investigation). And an abbreviation is obviously a word that abbreviates another longer one (or several other ones), and that could be an acronym, but that could also be fridge for refrigerator for example.
This is a great addition to watching Rob Words, the knowledge and warmth you both have, makes for a great evening watch, and the fact that Jess looks like a baby otter is just a bonus!
Keep up the good work!
I love the various terms for "butterfly" as demonstrative of things being name locally, in the far past possibly, and from scratch. There seems to be as many different terms for it as there are languages.
Contrast this with the near universality of a word like "restaurant" which was apparently carried by, and important to, travellers.
Speaking of acronyms, I'm surprised nothing was said about "snafu."
A SNAFU ca happen in any organisation, not just the military. The next highest 'rank' of stuff-up is the FUBAB [or FUBAR, as in Saving Private Ryan], short for Fouled Up Beyond All Belief/recognition". The worst is a CMF = Classic [or, Complete] Military Foul-up
I hadn't seen CMF. Although in the military I would expect it to be CMFU
Another level I learned was TARFU
Totally and Royally Fucked Up
So the hierarchy was SNAFU, TARFU and FUBAR
normally fU, royally fu, and finally FU beyond all recognition
The variant I first encountered was FUBARD, or Fouled Up Beyond All Reasonable Doubt.
In the seventies, I bought Partidge’s “Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English”. I enjoyed it very much and after this podcast will go look at it again. Thanks. Very enjoyable!
A Danish acrynom is 'gravko' = excavator. It literally means 'digging cow' but stems from a excavation company (GRAVEKOMPAGNIET) which was abbreviated to GRAV KO and painted on their equipment, so now an excavator is known to all Danes as a digging cow (gravko) and it even takes plural from 'ko' namely 'køer', so if you have more excavators you have 'gravkøer'.
An abbreviation, or in this case a contraction, is not an acronym. An acronym is an initialism that is pronounceable as a word. Still a cool story tho!
One of my art school pals was thrilled to find a genuine Thomas Crapper toilet in his flat. He used to show it off to new aquaintances. The name was printed on the back of the lavatory bowl. Oh the joy of 1960s student digs.
I was on a forum were would make backronyms from each other's name. Else- eigenwijs lief schattig ezeltje. For example.
As a HAM radio operator who is well acquainted with Morse Code CQ is the signal meaning "seek you" and is used to call a random station. for example "CQ CQ CQ de W1AW W1AW W1AW" would be a call to a random station from the ARRL headquarters station.
A friend tried to convince my that broccoli was named after (and invented by) the producer of the James Bond films.
In government there are so many acronyms that the acronym TLA, for "three-letter acronyms," was coined.
There are no rude words, only rude thoughts.
I disagree. There are rude words, as well as rude thoughts. The rude words are usually stated/shouted because of rude thoughts.
Your series is bloody wonderful. You both bring such gorgeous insights!
I have never heard of POSH as stamped on tickets but I have heard of it as being a mnemonic for sailors to allocate cabins. I have also heard of it used to cross the channel, not in the sense of travelling to India. If it is just a mnemonic, there would not be stamped tickets. We used many an aide-mémoire in the navy such as _"Is there any _*_red port left?"_*
Very doubtful that POSH was ever used in any formal capacity. It was a piece of informal knowledge acquired by the well-to-do seasoned traveller between Britain and India/Far East. A modern day equivalent would be the 'tips' proffered on how to get upgraded from economy to first-class on various airlines.
I've always taken the "de" in "debunk' to mean "remove from". The idea being that one is removing the bunk to make way for more accurate information.
Also, i know many people who still use bunk to mean misinformation or lies.
I call bunk on debunk. First (I may have heard you wrong there), 'bunk' for nonsense is still very much in use, and 'debunk' is not a heightening, but refers to the act of driving out the bunk. In no way do I feel that this is an orphan negative.
As for the f-bomb: I don't think this is a coincidence, but a potentially very long row of cognates: Swiss German for the verb is "figge", and the same verb can very innocently (though it will draw sniggers from the peanut gallery) be used to stand for 'rub', or 'chafe'. Might have been related to 'beat' at one time, but very much involves friction today. Swiss German is still very close to Middle High German. As with all things Swiss German, disclaimer: True in some dialects, may not be the case in others.
The German version is "ficken", and I heard the exact same etymology.
My favorite modern backronyms are from New Jersey's legal weed laws: The Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act (CUMMA) and Cannabis Regulatory Enforcement Assistance and Marketplace Modernization Act (CREAMMA).
One acronym I've been told that comes from the military is SNAFU. I'm told it stands for Situation Normal All Fucked Up.
I've loved the RobWords 'casts, they were brilliant but now so much better with Jess - she is simply stunning.
Aw, shucks. - Jess ;)
There's also FUBAR: Fouled (ahem) Up Beyond All Repair
I discovered this channel this afternoon on my day off. I was looking for some content to relax my mind... and I couldn't leave this channel! I watched several videos, super interesting!!!
I just found Jess's book on Amazon, and it will be delivered tomorrow 🥰
It's so enjoyable to listen to two such intelligent, curious, and humorous people! Best find of the month! 🎉
Interestingly, the German "Schmetterling" is related to the English "butterfly", not etymologically, but from the sense: The thickened sour cream that is commonly known as "Schmand" (similar to Crème Fraîche) is also called "Schmetter" in some areas in Germany, and this insect was also believed here to nourish on such dairy produce; the -ling suffix was then added to call it someone/-thing that is interested in that or has to do with it.
As my wife and I sailed on a small sailboat on the Chesapeake, we'd have some butterflies flutter by and sometimes hutch a ride with us for a while. SO, of course we called them "flutter-bys". *So much fun* playing games with the language.
I had a cow-orker who dropped f-bombs regularly and often. I ask him if his parents knew he talked like that. His response: “Fuck yeah, where d’ya think I learned it?”
I'm mildly miffed that Rob didn't bring up the German for butterfly, Schmetterling.
It has a similar meaning as butterfly, namely "something born from butter", 'Schmetter' being an archaic German word for butter.
When someone tells me one of those acronym fables, I run screaming for my OED.
Yeah, I can't think of one offhand that isn't bogus.
As further evidence against an acronymic origin, 'tag' is called 'tig' in North East England (and Scotland also).
My favorite discovery was from a plant name: a dark purple salvia variety called "Nachtvlinder" (which might translate as 'moth' = night butterfly) but made me wonder about the etymology of the word flinder... and the idea that one might smash e.g. a stone to butterflies.
FIAT - Fix it again Tony! LOL as anyone who owned a Fiat in America during the dark times can attest.
You had to be in the right place (I used to own a couple Fiats; lovely to drive, a pain to maintain, electrical system a cheap copy of J. Lucas). An engineer friend of mine in Silicon Valley spent several years working in Detroit and drove a Fiat. Which dealer would track maintenance periods and so on, would remind him of upcoming service, provide a loaner car while his was in the shop, and when coming back to pick up his car, the service manager would go over all the work done (often extras, as well), and take him on a short post-service drive. The dealer didn't dare have their vehicles show any operational deficiences ... in DETROIT.
Posh in my OED First Edition 1909 says "dialect - The fragments produced by a smash; a soft, decayed, rotten, or pulpy mass; a state of slush. Posh-ice: Ice broken into small fragments
Cockney rhyming slang is an interesting beast, especially as they usually cut it down to just the first part, so the actual rhyme is obscured, meaning no-one outside those in the know can work it out! Example: someone complaining that "Ooh, me plates are sore". To a cockney, this is obviously his/her feet, as "plates of meat" = "feet", but to an outsider?
This. I always get annoyed when the code is spilled.
@@HotelPapa100 Really had to use my loaf for that one! Nice!
@@kevinmcqueenie7420 I don't really know rhyming slang. Did I accidentally hit something?
@@HotelPapa100 to be honest, probably not! Loaf of bread is slang for head, and I realise now I implied I got your reference. I meant that I didn’t, bad language nerding going on at my end! Been a long day! Revise to “I need to use my loaf for this one!”
Ronnie Barker uses the phrase "I don't give a hangman's" in Open All Hours. It's obviously rhyming slang but what is the meaning?
Port Out Starboard Home was part of the lyric of a song the Grandpa sings in the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and he is using the acronym as well in the song.
ua-cam.com/video/AzEWodlTFq0/v-deo.htmlsi=-BJWnw2Wxn0vueHO
Your point being? Clearly the Sherman Brothers, who wrote the music and lyrics for the film, didn't bother to check whether there was any truth in the story before they used it. And why would they? They where writing a comic song, not an etymology thesis.
@@youngmistergrace3378 I think you mistook my post totally. I was sharing a fond memory that was associated with what the speakers were talking about. I made no claim of validity. YMG, you might want to unwad your panties.
Never heard that song. Obviously it was written long after the word posh started being used and is just repeating the folk etymology.
I think the point is that the movie - released in the mid-1960s - popularised the false etymology. My suspicion is that the Sherman brothers knew it was a false etymology, since the comedic song was written for the character of a senile (bordering on deranged) old man. But this didn’t stop viewers of the movie from believing that they had learnt something true.
Love to all my fellow word nerds! I love this community.
Re "ris:"
Spring has sprung,
The grass is ris;
I wonder where
The birdies is.
Falconers look after hawks, hawkers sell things maybe even hawks…
Butterflies and flies are in different orders of insects, lepidoptera and diptera, respectively.
Trivial names usually are not concerned with such minutiae. It flies, so clearly it can be named a fly.
@@HotelPapa100 Tell that to your pet eagle!
German for butterfly is _Schmetterling._ German Wikipedia says _Die deutsche Bezeichnung „Schmetterling“, 1501 erstmals belegt, kommt vom slawischstämmigen ostmitteldeutschen Wort Schmetten (das heißt Schmand, Rahm), von dem einige Arten oft angezogen werden._ (The German name “butterfly”, first documented in 1501, comes from the Slavic East-Central German word Schmetten (i.e. sour cream, cream), to which some species are often attracted.)
The organisation I work for is one of those where words have been fiddled with until they made a decent acronym (FACES - the Family, Adult & Community Education Service). I also enjoy recursive acronyms, such as GNU (GNU's Not Unix) or MiNT (originally MiNT is Not TOS, but it became MiNT is Now TOS later when it replaced TOS). I heard the tips one on a walking history tour in London, where it stood for To Insure Prompt Service in the 17th Century Coffee Houses. Anyway, fun episode, ta!
The 'choke' in an artichoke is a mass of sort of hairy fluff in the centre just above the tasty part. It is inedible and has to be removed before cooking. Presumably it is called this because it would choke someone if left in.
Depending on preparation it IS left in, and the eater has to remove it by hemselves. It's also tricky, because in very young artichokes the lower part of the florets (this is what the hairy bits are) is delicate to eat, but you by all means want to avoid the needly bits.
Here in Germany we have a collection of funny bacronyms, designed to make fun of something. I bet Rob has heard of these?
For example the popular car from Volkswagen "Golf", written as VW Golf, stands for "Völlig wertloses Gefährt ohne logische Funktion" (completely worthless vehicle without logical function) or BMW stands for "Bring mehr Werkzeug" (bring more tools).
Sometimes these are just too close to the truth, as with SAP (the software) which stands for "Schlechtestes aller Programme" (crappiest of all programs).
I once had an excel sheet full of those things which could be quite long at times (Yamaha for "Yeti auf Moped am Himalaya abgestürzt" (Yeti with motorbike crashed at Himalaya)).
Is Thomas Crapper an example of Nominative Determinism?
Love these podcasts. Can't wait to see you next Tuesday
I’m taking slangwanger.
I think that the threat off having your fingers cut of was relevant at the time and was reported by the King. Large groups of archers acting under their Captains would hold their hands up to show readiness or unready or other signals ( No arrows or number of arrows). The Luttrell Psalter (13C) shows a left handed archer raising his fingers in salute ( to acknowledge a good shot?).
In Australia we call English ppl ‘Poms’ .. allegedly an acronym of Prisoner Of Mother England.
Yes, we use pom, pommy, pommies, etc. The story I remember is that it's a shortening of pomegranate, which was a slang term for an immigrant.
@@carolinejames7257 The explanation I heard (and enjoyed) was that when scurvy was finally understood it was combatted with fruit high in vitamin C. The best fruit for which is lemon - but the British had no territories that were good for lemon production (the Spanish held those). So in the Atlantic we used limes and the Indian Ocean, Asia and Australasia we used pomegranates. Hence the Americans call us limeys and the Aussies call us pommies.
@@carolinejames7257 I've heard this story too.. but only applies to English ppl. There's also wog.. western oriental gentleman.
@@wilsonwombat3456 I haven't heard that one before; that is, I've heard wog (though rarely these days, it seems to have faded away) but not that it was an acronym. To me, that seems far too neat and is likely a folk etymology, especially since it was mostly used (here in Oz) to describe Europeans from around the Mediterranean, mostly Greeks and Italians.
I don't know the etymology of the word, but I recall hearing once that it was a contraction of golliwog. I'm dubious about that one too, at least as it was used here.
@@carolinejames7257 If you live in Melbourne, some Mediterraneans wear the term 'wog' like a badge with pride. Often used in comedies on stage and tv. There's a few origin stories, like lexicographer F.C. Bowen noted it in 1929 referring to Indians, the British called Chinese in Hong Kong wogs, etc, though I have never heard of southern or eastern asians being called it at all. Then there's it being used in reference to sickness as in "I've got a wog ".
I first saw the "explanation" of the flutterby/butterfly story in a "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" strip. They also claimed in that same strip that "Intoxicated" was a Native American word meaning "Shot with a poisoned arrow". Usually, I could not believe it.
And I loved that story about Sir Douglas Bader, below.
Can't imagine there were many return tickets to India sold. People who went surely had bigger plans than a few weeks hollibobs. Do something much less involved, like catch a train today, and, you'll have separate tickets for each direction, with an specific seat allocation. The obvious thing would be to look at ship's manifests & see if people were actually getting cabins on alternate sides. Acronyms are also the bread & butter of Telegrams, so wires to travel agents would be the most likely place to find p.o.s.h. in use.
I do like the Urdu explanation though. Online translators throw up "clad" as the most literal translation of "push". It's in the right territory to be a loan word, like dobi, mufti & pyjamas. It still has stronger connotations with appearance than wealth & the Romany "half" seems ill fitted to express a superlative anything.
An Urdu loan word would also be ripe for the creation of a backronym, near but not in....
Regarding debunk, in Portuguese it means to win (a prize or bet), and in Brazil also means "dethrone" the favourite (win against the odds). Interestingly enough, the word came to Portuguese from Italian "Banca" (bank), the place put and take money from, but the Italians took the word from Germanic "Bank". So, in short, debunk in Portuguese came from des + banco + ar (desbancar), or dis (Latim removing) + Bank (Germanic noun) + ar (suffix for 'action of' - bancar meaning banking/funding), or taking from the bank.
RobWords spoke about “rizz”, life is now complete
When I was learning Morse code, I was told that C.Q. was a way to say in Morse "seek you", but could be transmitted with fewer letters, like when using lol or idk or iirc in texting.
Or "CU L8R". 😅
In French, tip is « pourboire », which translates as « for drinking ». You’re basically paying a drink to your waiter. I always thought that it was similar for tip, something relating a tipping a glass…
This. I associate it with the German "Trinkgeld". Drink money.
Tip is short for "tipple money" in English.
@@lohphat Danish: "drikkepenge"
@@BrennanYoung Tak! Jer er ikke sikkert om jeg vid det nok...
In Swedish tips are called "dricks".
("Dricka" = "to drink")
I design security circuits for chips. Amongst those circuits was the 'Secure Hardware Integrity Test'. That is where that words came from. I invented it.
Goodness me, what is wrong with you two? The last video was all about people's stools and now there's today's potty mouthed venture. That said, I genuinely misheard you say vowel shift, I thought you said bowel shift. 💩
Thank you for your videos, they are very informative and I have enjoyed all that I have watched. I look forward to any future videos you might make, thanks!
What a great pairing! I look forward to the podcast/video on swearing. I imagine Rob will just turn his camera off.
"mod" meaning courage makes sense - cognate with German Mut and Dutch moed - didn't know that derivation of wormwood, but I did know that etymologically speaking, wormwood and vermouth are brethren.
I had a conversation online with someone who was trying to claim that News was "news, entertainment, weather and sports", and that it described the order in which things were presented on television or in the papers. I responded with "the N in news can't stand for News. That would be an infinite loop."
Butterfly is one of those rare words that translate very differently in many languages. Vlinder (Dutch), schmetterling (German), farfalla (Italian), papillon (French), mariposa (Spanish)...
Swedish: "Fjäril"
Danish and Norwegian: "Sommerfugl"
Butterfly is not a Flies 😊
@@TerrAqua No, but it’s an insect.
As a British folk singer of several decades' standing, I'm always intrigued by the so-called folk process, whereby songs evolve by being misremembered by singers. One of my favourite examples is 'The Lowlands Low'. Bear with me a while! The original English version is something like 'I have a little ship in the North Countree / And the name that she has is the Golden Vanitee / As she sails upon the Lowlands low'. The song crossed the Atlantic and by the time it reached the Appalachians it had morphed into 'The Merry Golden Tree / And she sailed upon the low and lonesome sea'. Just to complicate things, in the English song she gets into a fight with 'the Spanish Galilee'!
Our cat is Artichoke, which was the name the animal shelter we adopted her from had assigned. We call her Arti (unless she's in trouble).
SOS & CQD [I'll try to remember some research I did a few years ago]
In the early years of radio, Marconi set up a company which provided equipment and operators to ships. As part of this, his radio signals (including CQD) were protected as intellectual property and could only be used by his employees. By 1908 there were other companies set up in competition with Marconi, and a meeting was held between these companies to standardise radio signals, amongst these was SOS, which was chosen for it's ability to be recognisable through the noise and static. As Jess said these were radio signals and the individual letters had no meaning. I believe that the signals are meant to be sent as a singe character and not as individual letters. It might be interesting to see when the first backronym for SOS was used.
As an aside, the radio operators on the Titanic went against the rules in sending both CQD and SOS calls as this would have meant attempting to make calls to non-Marconi stations.
I have always found that words are never ‘rude’; it is only those who utilise them who are so… say the Master of English.
I found it really amusing the part of a mongoose being so similar to geese. And that is because in Spanish, mongoose is mangosta, which is very similar to langosta (a lobster) and then you have mangostino (mangosteen the fruit) and langostino (a large shrimp). But nowhere near a goose (ganso). So, there you have it, that's why people get lost in translation.
In the movie, "Darkest Hour," Churchill was mildly chided by people on the subway for making the "V for victory" sign backwards.
One group of letter that no longer means anything is ECHL. It is a minor professional hockey league.
It used to mean the East Coast Hockey League. It cooperated with the West Coast Hockey League (WCHL), they both were a farm league for the AHL, American Hockey League which itself is a farm league of the NHL.
In 2003 the West Coast Hockey League folded and the East Coast Hockey League expanded to include the old WCHL teams. Since they're no longer only East of the Mississippi, they just kept the ECHL but it no longer means anything.