As interesting as the idea is i imagine it plays out one of 2 ways. Either there is continuity of civilization and its just a matter of a simple search for the first time someone tweeted the word or there hasn't been continuity and good luck retrieving this type of data from a digital age captured on archaic technology.
@@willstikken5619 there will, I imagine, always be the need for some form of hard copy backup of any digital or other nonphysical important information like the reference book. They are too valuable to the connection between past and future for experts, so there's no reason there wouldn't be anything like hard copies in the future. Not only that, there's such a thing as translation and transcription, too, where people in the present bring forward information from the past and make it understandable and searchable in the present. There has been such a thing for thousands of years, through hundreds of language forms. There's no reason to think that such an occupation/hobby/fascination with such things would disappear in the future, either.
@@MaryAnnNytowl You seem to be ignoring the part where much of the modern world is not in print, needed or not it doesn't exist. And the word of mouth transfer you're suggesting as the backup is hardly a reliable method. Just talk to some recent high school grads and see how many of them need a calculator to divide by 1...
You missed an opportunity to tell the fascinating story of the word pink. It originally meant small. That's why your smallest finger is called a pinky. If your eye is swollen shut, therefore small, you have pinkeye. There are flowers that resemble such an eye, so they were named pinkeyes. I think you can guess what color those flowers are. The color is named after those flowers.
I knew most of these except for Nimrod, where I know it as hunter, but didn't know Americans used it as an insult because they didn't get a reference in a Bugs Bunny cartoon! Funny how orchid deriving from testicle was mentioned, but vanilla deriving from vagina wasn't (avocados are similarly testicular). It's amazing how far some words have come. 'Blatant' started as the name of a thousand tongued monster in a poem by Spenser. Tyres (or American tires) are related to 'attire' because the wheel is clothed. 'Obsess' originally meant sit opposite. 'Muscle' comes from 'musculus' Latin for little mouse, suggesting a muscle looks like a mouse running under the skin. 'Pupil' comes from the Latin pupilla or little puppet, because your reflection in the dark part of someones eyes looks like a tiny doll. Women has nothing to do with wombs, but was originally 'wifman' or wifeman. Why do we have a word sycophant, which meant 'fig-smuggler' in Greek? So many words are full of stories. I learnt today that oil of Neroli is named after a princess.
@@Gmackematix Musculus came from Latin, but before that it was a Serbian word meaning little mouse MISHICH. I wrote it in such a way so you know how to pronounce it. Otherwise it would be misic. Serbian is a phonetic language - one letter - one sound. Latin contains 6000 Serbian words. It goes back to Vinca Culture, thousands of years ago. Serbs had spread all over Europe, incl Italian peninsula. Serbs passed on the language and script to the Etruscans first and then to the Romans. Latin evolved over centuries. They have adopted Serbian words that we passed on to the Greeks before the Ancient Greece. Serbs were the Illyrians, as the Romans called them. The Greeks called them Tribali.
8:51 "A promising premium cable show that totally jumped the shark, but then got a reboot anyway." - Best definition of Dexter that I ever heard so far. ☆☆☆ (Kudos.)
My favorite etymology is cantaloupe. The variety of musk melon is came from the Papal estate Cantalupo di Sabina in the Sabine Hills. The estate got the name from the canta lupo (song of the wolf) from the wolves howling you could hear echoing through the hills.
An elementary school special education teacher tasked with tutoring me in penmanship commented to my parents that I wasn't so much ambidextrous as ambisintral - not particularly good with either hand. (It was many years before they shared that with me.) Goodness, that's an apt description.
Fascinating stuff. As an Albanian speaker, amongst a few slavic and romance languages, I found many parallel meanings here found in Albanian, mostly through a latin common origin . In Albanian "Kap" (pronounced the same as "Cop"), means to grab or to catch! Whiskey's meaining in Gaelic as "littlle water" has the same root in Albanian "Uj" (pronounced "oo-ee"). "Krymb" means is a worm in Albanian too. etc, etc...
@@MentalFloss definitely! 40 years ago, it was drummed into me by my Latin teacher! "Wayny, weedy, weeky!" I can still decline "a table" and conjugate "to love" (my full name is Amanda, so I'm not going to forget it!). That's pretty much it though after that time. But having learned Classical Greek since then and I realized how much of Latin got pinched from the Greeks!
My 7th grade history teacher made us do a "word analysis" every week. It was 5 words relevant to the material covered in class during the week. We had to have 2 definitions of the word, an etymology, and 2 sentences where the word was used...and we had to cite the sources of those definitions and sentences. I have been fascinated with etymologies ever since! Thanks Capt. Williams!
I have one! *POUTINE* is a French Canadian word that comes from the English word 'pudding'. There still is no word for pudding today in the French language - if you order a chocolate pudding in a restaurant you call it 'une pudding au chocolat". When the French Canadians saw how English Christmas pudding was made and having no comparable recipe, anything with a load of ingredients was to them a 'poutine", as they understood the word. In some regions, people still call a mishmash of leftovers or some not too palatable mix "de la poutine pour les chats" (cat pudding). So, one day, someone with a serious hangover or with not much left in the pantry, combined curd cheese, fries and gravy to the world's delight and to the arteries dismay. As a teenager, I was surprised to see on restaurant menus in many regions outside of the city, fries offered with gravy and some even with peas. My guess is that a lot of people enjoyed their fries dripping in sauce from a hot chicken sandwich. Then someone added curd cheese and the rest is history.
Canary derives its name from Tamazight, also known as Berber, the language of the indigenous people of North Africa. The Guanch, who are also Amazigh( Berbers), are the native inhabitants of the Canary Islands. Canary is a variation of the Amazigh word Aknary, which means prickly pear. If you’ve ever been to the Islands, there are prickly pears everywhere, hence the name.
That's interesting. This is the first i've heard of this. i've heard the dog connection frequently but nobody has ever been able to justify how the islands were associated with dogs. Another one I find strange is that nobody seems to know where the English word "dog" comes from. It doesn't seem to come from any other language. Somehow it appears that some English person just invented it and it stuck. I suspect it came from the sound of its bark but that's pure speculation.
24:10 Friday deriving from Frigga ("Frija's day") missed mentioning her husband Odin getting a day ("Wodin's day" becoming Wednesday), and Odin's son Thor the day following ("Thor's day").
@@reptilesceptile1035 Both Frigga (or more accurately Frija) and Wodin are accurate terms, the Germanic tribes had various names for the same gods in different areas, in fact it could be argued that Friday actually comes from the Saxon form of the Goddess, Fri (Pronounced like the word free), oddly enough however, Wodin is by far the more common of the spellings of Odin, Wodan itself is rare and is normally written Woudan, although it is closer to the theorised etymological root, Wodanaz, meaning "Ruler of Frenzy".
Just to complete the set... Sunday = Sun's Day, Monday = Moon's Day, Tuesday = Tyr's Day (Tyr was also known as Tiwaz -> Tiw/Tiu -> Tiw's Day), and then Saturday = Saturn's Day (the only one without Germanic roots). As a bonus etymology fact: The associations with each particular day with the different gods likely had their basis in Latin. For example, dies Martis ("Day of Mars") is Tuesday, and Mars/Ares was often associated/conflated with Tyr, thus Mars's Day would've become Tyr's Day. These associations are often good examples of what seem like misunderstandings or oversimplifications of the nature of the Norse deities in order to match them to their Grecco-Roman counterparts, because Thursday is Jovis/Jupiter's (Zeus) Day, and really the only thing they have in common is lightning bolts (not the ONLY thing, but there are definitely better candidates for a Zeus counterpart in the Aesir). Sorry for the comment necromancy.
You!!! Are witty. Are bright. Have a lovely tone to your voice. And are both credible and entertaining. Bravo. Cadence - maybe slow down a tad. A little speedy. More conversational? Less prompter? Love the topic.
Did you know that , slope' is cognate with Romanian Prislop ( high altitude terrain in a shape of a saddle)? Or , freak' with , frica'( fear) Boy with ,baiat' Bulk with , bulgare' with ,g' from PIE b'h'alg'( pile)? Etc.
We say Shah Mat in Pashto also... in pashto or even Avestan the predecessor of the Afghan languages.... Mat means broken... in other words... the king is Broken?
Now, it would be nice if you described where these languages are spoken. I work in an urban hospital, and am exposed to several different languages every day. I thought I was rather versed in the variety of languages, until I heard Farsi-- "where is THAT from?" (Saudi Arabia and such). So, where is Pashto spoken?
Great video Erin love this sort of show Just one point though “Nimrod” and the “Tower of Babel” are both mentioned in Genesis, chapters 10 and 11 respectively
I am English, and I don't know any English speakers who use the word nimrod in a derogatory way. An orange was originally called a norigne. Over time it morphed into an orange. They sound exactly the same, when spoken. Polyorchid means a man born with more than two testicles. I really enjoyed the video. I love words, and I used to often say "I must have my words!" You had to be there.
Thanks! RE: nimrod, it might be a purely American thing. It's definitely a bit dated (you wouldn't actually call someone a nimrod unless you're one of the 3 stooges), but I think most Americans would recognize it as an insult.
I love looking up the etymology of words, it’s fascinating. I also learn a lot about various European IE-origin languages this way. With a few basic, irregular, verbs like To Be, along with the pronouns and the many cognates, one can often understand quite a bit in other IE languages, e.g. clear, claire, claro. It’s even easier in the science vocabulary of my profession: granite/granita, diorite/diorita, etc. Learning some Latin really helps a lot. I love your correct Latin pronunciation of Vacca, I hardly ever hear decent Latin in Audible books, YT videos, or anywhere else.❤
I just learned clew a few weeks ago, but a few days ago, I couldn’t remember it, thanks for the refresher. I wanted to search for a clew, not a ball, of twine. It gets harder to remember new words in one’s 60s, as I am! I usually need a reminder, or to see it in a book or hear someone use it.
Me too. BTW, do you know that Latin contains 6000 Serbian words, Sanskrit 40% is Serbian, English has 5 to 6000 Serbian Words. It came from Vinca Culture, the cradle of European civilisation.
My understanding of "universe" is the meaning "one cycle" (almost the same as "one rotation"), referring to the belief that the world is coninually created and destroyed, being then recreated for the next cycle or "verse". The universe is therefore everything that exists since the last creation until the next destruction.
@10:35: Ironically, *the word "butcher" is itself a butchering* of either the French "Boucher", the Lombard "Bechee", or the Piedmontese "Bëcché". One of my aunt's has the last name "Boucher", where in French-speaking societies, suggests she is descended from the Champagne region.
Additional words coined by authors: "Grok" -- Robert A. Heinlein in "Stranger in a Strange Land" [To understand in fullness] Two initialisms: "Tanstaafl" -- Also Heinlein, in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" [There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch" "Tanj" -- Larry Niven in several of his "Known Space" stories [There Ain't No Justice] I speculate it was coined partly in homage to Heinlein.
I don’t know the etymology of -oid, but in geology we use this as a suffix to indicate like, or similar to something else. For example, the most common rock-forming mineral group, the feldspars, have a defined structure, properties and chemistry, but minerals like it but lacking the same chemistry, are called feldspathoids, or just foids for short. I’ll have to research the etymology of -oid, but that for such unusual suffixes can be hard to find.
My guy is pit bull and rottweiler. Nothing sinister about him. His sister is a bichon name Jakey (Jakob) after a pomeranian I had of the same name who was nicknamed Cujo the attack fluffle. Jakob means to follow or supplant, which she intends to do after her older sister passes (Janyce, from Janus, the God who guards the gates to the underworld with one face toward the living and the other towards the dead). Etymology of names is interesting.
I was going to commit that the Bouquet is very similar to what we use in Arabic 'Baqah' باقة so I thought we borrowed it from English, but I decided to search first and i found the word Baqah was used in old classic Arabic and it was used to describe bunch of non-wood plant like watercress or Portulaca so in old Arabic they say 'Baqah" of Portulaca or Portulaca 'Baqah' so maybe it's the other way around 🤔
We all had a good laugh when the real estate agent for a friend listed his property like this: “with a landscaped patio for dining al dente!” (Of course, she should have used the Italian expression “al fresco”, for outdoors, not the one for cooking pasta “to the tooth”.
"Orang-Utan" because of their hair colour is also the origin word for the australian word "ranga", meaning "a red-haired person" eg: "another Weasley ranga!"
I havent followed through with research, but i really thought it was more about original than orange......besides, the further u go back, the more words seem the same, such as all of the -wer words (word lol, worth, weird, war, warn, .....etc.)
@@MentalFloss Garaticulating is a word I used in a short story I wrote about 40 years ago. I made it up and its meaning is something like "soul cleansing" but with a wee bit more denotation. My early 20s self was trying to be cute, I did do some research and it did have roots somewhere, but over time the root escapes me. I have used it over the years, especially in business communication, and most people just fluff over the word pretending that they know the meaning. Over the years, it's been my little joke, especially to trip up my superiors. Used again, "I just uploaded a new song, 'Justifiable Jaywalking' to my Soundcloud account for a future UA-cam music video. It was garaticulating to make and garaticulating listening to the finished product." I figured a video on word etymology would be a good place to spring this on people. Keep up the great work on Mental Floss. I have enjoyed The Floss for a long, long time, even as a print medium. Thank you again.
I'm curious about words like tycoon, pundit, guru, kahuna, honcho... as a category of word that jumps language. Words that can be used as metaphors/references. Obviously, foreign foods and new technology jumps language. Toponyms (waterloo as a defeat) and eponyms (Benedict Arnold as a traitor) are their own category. I'm curious about what kinds of words are more likely to jump language.
Ummm yes, the King dying is literally and figuratively the end of the Chess game. If the King can go to a "safe" (non death creating) square, the game continues. But the ending move is called "Checkmate". "Check" means "I am warning you that I can take (kill) your King unless you block/move it. But I can see at least one way to do that". Check is much shorter.
There is a type of ocean fish called a dolphin. You've probably seen it offered in stores and restaurants under its more market-friendly Hawaiian name, mahi-mahi. It's thought they are called this because they swim ahead of sailing ships, the way porpoise dolphins do.
3:38 i had to translate that quote from the ambiguities to understand it. the only word i didn't feel the need to translate was night-life. i want those 5mins of my life back. booted out onto a noisy main road at night. (translated out of context - i never read it)
I love this video, I've watched it a few times (yes, I'm that sad, I love etymology l. But each time you reach "obstetrix", my mind conjures up an image of the midwife from Asterix the Gaul's village. No idea if there was a character like that, but it would work!
@@vericacvetkovic9093 but modern Latin does have a modern English "V" sound but I'm sure she was referring to the classical or original pronunciation of "V' which would have been W or U.
Uisge beatha is the Scottish form of Gaelic (which is pronounced Gah-lick, not Gay-lick), and is pronounced more like Oosh-ka beh-ha. Ish-ka ba-ha, the Irish version, is spelled Uisce beatha. The two Gaelics are similar, but different. Sláinte!
Cop: round our way, it used to be "off", rather than "out" - copping off with the prettiest girl. I read somewhere that "cop" comes from the Latin for "catch". [] French has "gauche" for left, which English uses for socially awkward - and awkward, I read, is Old English for "to the left" [And the French for "right" is "droit", which we've adopted as "adroit"]
I think that you should have used the info about "Centaur" and "Werewolf." Taur means bull, hence Tauros the bull, and the Spanish word for bull being "toro." "Cent" is the same word for 100 such as in CENTury, and perCENT. So it actually means 100 bulls. This makes other "taur" creature names make no sense. Such as some people using "cowtaur" which would only make it a cow bull. The ONE being that it makes sense is the Minotaur which translates to man bull. Same thing with werewolf. The "were" means "man." So to give anything "were" features would be to make it more humanlike, not more wolf-like.
(2:25) I find it interesting how "capere" becomes "caperay", but "capia" didn't become "capiey". English speakers adding random diphthongs to words without diphthongs is weird but interesting.
Love the etymology of words. So many have been corrupted since. I didn’t get through watching this however. I like smaller bits at a time. I left another comment which seems to have disappeared for some reason. I mentioned the first word and maybe was censored, sharing some vital information in relation. Idk.
The problem with etymologists is that they can't consider punning like the philologists. The radical etymon in pandemonium , diamon , plays off the word dominion.
I love erymology. Learned when I was little and in looking up a meaning in the dictionary . Which just lead to the pronuncistion, derivation and all the neighbouring words. Plus those with circular definitions. Sooo frustrating.
Interesting fact about clue-clew etymology in Turkish. Clue in turkish literally means "the head/beginning of of rope" (or is it called tail in english?)
3... Kap (Grab,To Get) Albanian Gheg 7...Pa An (everywhere) Dem (Damage) 8... La (Leave/Let/Wash-Law) Bor (Done-Snow) Leave Done(Work) 14... Mor (Take) ta Gje (Will find back to you)
Corruption of words is fascinating. I love to learn about how it shaped the words we have today, but I hate seeing it happen in real time. If enough people get a word wrong for a long enough time, the meaning will change. And that's how we got American English.
Yes. Note "could care less". The correct grammar is "couldn't care less", but so many people omit the "not" but it is taken as correct, and will become strengthened over time.
"WHAT A MAROON" is simply a word play on: "WHAT A MORON". Even back in the old days Bugs Bunny was politically correct to protect the minds of youngsters.
16... Si Nis Terr , As it starts (Wrong/Dark) 24...Pun(Work) Dit (Knows/knowet/Day"bright) =Specialist 29... Nim (Help)Rod(None/Without) Un helped. Self done. 34...Del (to come out) Hin(Enter) come out and enter back
11:39 पण्डित or पंडित are acceptable. Whatever is on the screen is gibberish.. Which brings us to the origins of the word "gibberish" Citation: hi.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A4%AA%E0%A4%A3%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%A1%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%A4 and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandit
Carthusian is pronounced Car-Tu-see-an. It’s a French word, so Th is pronounced as T, even if written. Foreign words excepted, I’m not sure how they handle them, but given the prevalence of Th in English, I hear a lot of Francophones pronouncing it like D when speaking English, or even Zh. It’s always tough to reproduce sounds not in one’s native language, like the Greek Kh, for me.
Nimrod was a king in Babylonia who married his mother and tried to make his tower it is believed his birthday is on December 25th and upon his death his wife mother told everyone that a pine stump was near where he was buried and the next day it was a full grown pine tree so she said if you put a pinetree in your house to honor nimrods birthday he will come and hang presents on the pine tree thats a large reason the jehovah witnesses beliefs donot celebrate christmas they believe jesus was born in a different time of year september i believe
If you picture a Roman legion with hundreds of men standing shoulder to shoulder, their shields protecting the comrade on their left and wielding a sword in the right hand, you can see why a "lefty" might be a bit of a problem. Presumably he had to learn to fight with the "wrong hand," which could make him somewhat awkward. In a mano-a-mano situation, stabbing you with that "wrong hand" could be seen as truly "sinister"!
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
These kinds of videos always make me think of people in the future doing this with our words today
‘The word Stan - meaning an obsessive supporter, originates from an adapted recitation of a popular hymn from the early 21st century.’
Game chimp nice;
As interesting as the idea is i imagine it plays out one of 2 ways. Either there is continuity of civilization and its just a matter of a simple search for the first time someone tweeted the word or there hasn't been continuity and good luck retrieving this type of data from a digital age captured on archaic technology.
@@willstikken5619 there will, I imagine, always be the need for some form of hard copy backup of any digital or other nonphysical important information like the reference book. They are too valuable to the connection between past and future for experts, so there's no reason there wouldn't be anything like hard copies in the future.
Not only that, there's such a thing as translation and transcription, too, where people in the present bring forward information from the past and make it understandable and searchable in the present. There has been such a thing for thousands of years, through hundreds of language forms. There's no reason to think that such an occupation/hobby/fascination with such things would disappear in the future, either.
@@MaryAnnNytowl You seem to be ignoring the part where much of the modern world is not in print, needed or not it doesn't exist. And the word of mouth transfer you're suggesting as the backup is hardly a reliable method. Just talk to some recent high school grads and see how many of them need a calculator to divide by 1...
You missed an opportunity to tell the fascinating story of the word pink. It originally meant small. That's why your smallest finger is called a pinky. If your eye is swollen shut, therefore small, you have pinkeye. There are flowers that resemble such an eye, so they were named pinkeyes. I think you can guess what color those flowers are. The color is named after those flowers.
❤ thanks for spreading the knowledge
When you choose only 70 words, there will be many "missed opportunities".
@@allendracabal0819 That is a good point.
🤔🤔🤔😲😲😲
So interesting! Thank you!
My kind of video!! I'm always looking up etymology for the most mundane words haha. Language evolution is so cool!
Thanks-this one was really fun to write!
I knew most of these except for Nimrod, where I know it as hunter, but didn't know Americans used it as an insult because they didn't get a reference in a Bugs Bunny cartoon! Funny how orchid deriving from testicle was mentioned, but vanilla deriving from vagina wasn't (avocados are similarly testicular). It's amazing how far some words have come. 'Blatant' started as the name of a thousand tongued monster in a poem by Spenser. Tyres (or American tires) are related to 'attire' because the wheel is clothed. 'Obsess' originally meant sit opposite. 'Muscle' comes from 'musculus' Latin for little mouse, suggesting a muscle looks like a mouse running under the skin. 'Pupil' comes from the Latin pupilla or little puppet, because your reflection in the dark part of someones eyes looks like a tiny doll. Women has nothing to do with wombs, but was originally 'wifman' or wifeman. Why do we have a word sycophant, which meant 'fig-smuggler' in Greek? So many words are full of stories. I learnt today that oil of Neroli is named after a princess.
Greetings from Argentina, which means LAND OF SILVER
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@@Gmackematix
Musculus came from Latin, but before that it was a Serbian word meaning little mouse MISHICH. I wrote it in such a way so you know how to pronounce it. Otherwise it would be misic. Serbian is a phonetic language - one letter - one sound.
Latin contains 6000 Serbian words. It goes back to Vinca Culture, thousands of years ago. Serbs had spread all over Europe, incl Italian peninsula. Serbs passed on the language and script to the Etruscans first and then to the Romans. Latin evolved over centuries.
They have adopted Serbian words that we passed on to the Greeks before the Ancient Greece. Serbs were the Illyrians, as the Romans called them. The Greeks called them Tribali.
Ditto!
8:45 everything they own in the box to the left LOL that was so good
8:51 "A promising premium cable show that totally jumped the shark,
but then got a reboot anyway." - Best definition of Dexter that I ever heard so far. ☆☆☆
(Kudos.)
My favorite etymology is cantaloupe.
The variety of musk melon is came from the Papal estate Cantalupo di Sabina in the Sabine Hills. The estate got the name from the canta lupo (song of the wolf) from the wolves howling you could hear echoing through the hills.
Love that
Yeah, I love that too!
An elementary school special education teacher tasked with tutoring me in penmanship commented to my parents that I wasn't so much ambidextrous as ambisintral - not particularly good with either hand. (It was many years before they shared that with me.)
Goodness, that's an apt description.
Fascinating stuff. As an Albanian speaker, amongst a few slavic and romance languages, I found many parallel meanings here found in Albanian, mostly through a latin common origin . In Albanian "Kap" (pronounced the same as "Cop"), means to grab or to catch! Whiskey's meaining in Gaelic as "littlle water" has the same root in Albanian "Uj" (pronounced "oo-ee").
"Krymb" means is a worm in Albanian too. etc, etc...
So excited to hear Latin pronounced correctly. Thanks for all your great work!
Oo thanks! That gave us a LOT of anxiety, so I'm happy to hear our best efforts were appreciated!
@@MentalFloss definitely! 40 years ago, it was drummed into me by my Latin teacher! "Wayny, weedy, weeky!" I can still decline "a table" and conjugate "to love" (my full name is Amanda, so I'm not going to forget it!). That's pretty much it though after that time. But having learned Classical Greek since then and I realized how much of Latin got pinched from the Greeks!
Wtf, she literally said uacca not vacca. 🤦🏻♂️
@@drillsergeant623 ...and?
@@noway8259 and? and?
My 7th grade history teacher made us do a "word analysis" every week. It was 5 words relevant to the material covered in class during the week. We had to have 2 definitions of the word, an etymology, and 2 sentences where the word was used...and we had to cite the sources of those definitions and sentences. I have been fascinated with etymologies ever since! Thanks Capt. Williams!
I have one! *POUTINE* is a French Canadian word that comes from the English word 'pudding'. There still is no word for pudding today in the French language - if you order a chocolate pudding in a restaurant you call it 'une pudding au chocolat". When the French Canadians saw how English Christmas pudding was made and having no comparable recipe, anything with a load of ingredients was to them a 'poutine", as they understood the word. In some regions, people still call a mishmash of leftovers or some not too palatable mix "de la poutine pour les chats" (cat pudding). So, one day, someone with a serious hangover or with not much left in the pantry, combined curd cheese, fries and gravy to the world's delight and to the arteries dismay.
As a teenager, I was surprised to see on restaurant menus in many regions outside of the city, fries offered with gravy and some even with peas. My guess is that a lot of people enjoyed their fries dripping in sauce from a hot chicken sandwich. Then someone added curd cheese and the rest is history.
Canary derives its name from Tamazight, also known as Berber, the language of the indigenous people of North Africa. The Guanch, who are also Amazigh( Berbers), are the native inhabitants of the Canary Islands. Canary is a variation of the Amazigh word Aknary, which means prickly pear. If you’ve ever been to the Islands, there are prickly pears everywhere, hence the name.
That's interesting. This is the first i've heard of this. i've heard the dog connection frequently but nobody has ever been able to justify how the islands were associated with dogs. Another one I find strange is that nobody seems to know where the English word "dog" comes from. It doesn't seem to come from any other language. Somehow it appears that some English person just invented it and it stuck. I suspect it came from the sound of its bark but that's pure speculation.
Prickly pears are native only to the Americas.
That was wonderful and informative! Thank you!
Thanks for watching!
Do one of these for music!!! Piano, guitar, trombone, accompaniment, da capo, fermata, sforzando, sharps & flats!
24:10 Friday deriving from Frigga ("Frija's day") missed mentioning her husband Odin getting a day ("Wodin's day" becoming Wednesday), and Odin's son Thor the day following ("Thor's day").
Ha, yes! We had to cut ourselves off somewhere, but I was definitely amused when this came up in research!
You mean Frigg; Frigga is a marvel character. And it's not Wodin, but Wodan.
@@reptilesceptile1035 Both Frigga (or more accurately Frija) and Wodin are accurate terms, the Germanic tribes had various names for the same gods in different areas, in fact it could be argued that Friday actually comes from the Saxon form of the Goddess, Fri (Pronounced like the word free), oddly enough however, Wodin is by far the more common of the spellings of Odin, Wodan itself is rare and is normally written Woudan, although it is closer to the theorised etymological root, Wodanaz, meaning "Ruler of Frenzy".
Just to complete the set... Sunday = Sun's Day, Monday = Moon's Day, Tuesday = Tyr's Day (Tyr was also known as Tiwaz -> Tiw/Tiu -> Tiw's Day), and then Saturday = Saturn's Day (the only one without Germanic roots).
As a bonus etymology fact: The associations with each particular day with the different gods likely had their basis in Latin. For example, dies Martis ("Day of Mars") is Tuesday, and Mars/Ares was often associated/conflated with Tyr, thus Mars's Day would've become Tyr's Day. These associations are often good examples of what seem like misunderstandings or oversimplifications of the nature of the Norse deities in order to match them to their Grecco-Roman counterparts, because Thursday is Jovis/Jupiter's (Zeus) Day, and really the only thing they have in common is lightning bolts (not the ONLY thing, but there are definitely better candidates for a Zeus counterpart in the Aesir).
Sorry for the comment necromancy.
one that i like a lot is Crown, taking root in the PIE term "be curved", which then refere to the animal Crow, same reason why the term crowbar exist
You!!! Are witty. Are bright. Have a lovely tone to your voice. And are both credible and entertaining. Bravo.
Cadence - maybe slow down a tad. A little speedy. More conversational? Less prompter? Love the topic.
You are so wicked smart.
If we could listen to you all the time .
Thanks for your time working on all ur videos!!!
This is going in my toolbox thank you ❤️
It's probably out of print now but if you can find a book called "Words Of Science" by Isaac Asimov I recommend grabbing it.
Did you know that , slope' is cognate with Romanian Prislop ( high altitude terrain in a shape of a saddle)?
Or , freak' with , frica'( fear)
Boy with ,baiat'
Bulk with , bulgare' with ,g' from PIE b'h'alg'( pile)?
Etc.
I always enjoy videos like this, so thank you, YT, for suggesting it to me. 😊
Really really well done video. Your writing and delivery are spot on. Love the Dexter reference.
In Turkish we say şah mat instead of check mate. Which makes more sense now
And we count in Farsi when playing backgammon
We say Shah Mat in Pashto also... in pashto or even Avestan the predecessor of the Afghan languages.... Mat means broken... in other words... the king is Broken?
Now, it would be nice if you described where these languages are spoken. I work in an urban hospital, and am exposed to several different languages every day. I thought I was rather versed in the variety of languages, until I heard Farsi-- "where is THAT from?" (Saudi Arabia and such). So, where is Pashto spoken?
@@dianeridley9804 Pashto is one of the primary lgs of Afghanistan.
Great video Erin love this sort of show
Just one point though “Nimrod” and the “Tower of Babel” are both mentioned in Genesis, chapters 10 and 11 respectively
This video is brilliant ,more please
I am English, and I don't know any English speakers who use the word nimrod in a derogatory way. An orange was originally called a norigne. Over time it morphed into an orange. They sound exactly the same, when spoken. Polyorchid means a man born with more than two testicles.
I really enjoyed the video. I love words, and I used to often say "I must have my words!" You had to be there.
Thanks! RE: nimrod, it might be a purely American thing. It's definitely a bit dated (you wouldn't actually call someone a nimrod unless you're one of the 3 stooges), but I think most Americans would recognize it as an insult.
@@MentalFloss So how did it become such a popular American thing if only Moe, Larry and Curly would call you a nimrod?
Also English, but lived in California from age of 2 until I was 22 - never encountered the derogatory meaning of "Nimrod" either.
@@frankhooper7871 I could say he's talking bollox (another quaintly English word.)
This is some legit quality content.
thank you Erin! I'm always happy when these videos pop up
Thanks for watching, and for the kind words!
Thank you for all these interesting insights
I love looking up the etymology of words, it’s fascinating. I also learn a lot about various European IE-origin languages this way. With a few basic, irregular, verbs like To Be, along with the pronouns and the many cognates, one can often understand quite a bit in other IE languages, e.g. clear, claire, claro. It’s even easier in the science vocabulary of my profession: granite/granita, diorite/diorita, etc. Learning some Latin really helps a lot. I love your correct Latin pronunciation of Vacca, I hardly ever hear decent Latin in Audible books, YT videos, or anywhere else.❤
I just learned clew a few weeks ago, but a few days ago, I couldn’t remember it, thanks for the refresher. I wanted to search for a clew, not a ball, of twine. It gets harder to remember new words in one’s 60s, as I am! I usually need a reminder, or to see it in a book or hear someone use it.
Good one. One of my favorite topics.
Ma'am, though you speak very fast, I can still understand you because of your good enunciation of your words! Thank you!
I always enjoy nerdy etymology stuff. 📚
Me too. BTW, do you know that Latin contains 6000 Serbian words, Sanskrit 40% is Serbian, English has 5 to 6000 Serbian Words. It came from Vinca Culture, the cradle of European civilisation.
very interesting!
Damn I love this channel!
My understanding of "universe" is the meaning "one cycle" (almost the same as "one rotation"), referring to the belief that the world is coninually created and destroyed, being then recreated for the next cycle or "verse". The universe is therefore everything that exists since the last creation until the next destruction.
Macintosh is from the Irish/Scotch Gaelic "Mac an Taoisigh" ie Son of the Taoiseach - The Irish Prime- Minister is called the "Taoiseach".
Thanks again for sharing
This was awesome!
@10:35: Ironically, *the word "butcher" is itself a butchering* of either the French "Boucher", the Lombard "Bechee", or the Piedmontese "Bëcché".
One of my aunt's has the last name "Boucher", where in French-speaking societies, suggests she is descended from the Champagne region.
Thanks. I've been told that checkmate translates as 'The King is forfeit' (meaning 'lost'). tavi.
Additional words coined by authors:
"Grok" -- Robert A. Heinlein in "Stranger in a Strange Land"
[To understand in fullness]
Two initialisms:
"Tanstaafl" -- Also Heinlein, in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"
[There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"
"Tanj" -- Larry Niven in several of his "Known Space" stories
[There Ain't No Justice] I speculate it was coined partly in homage to Heinlein.
5:26 ultimate etymology of robot is orphan . [ the o goes < that way, the b becomes ‘ph’ , plus the suffixes change]
I don’t know the etymology of -oid, but in geology we use this as a suffix to indicate like, or similar to something else. For example, the most common rock-forming mineral group, the feldspars, have a defined structure, properties and chemistry, but minerals like it but lacking the same chemistry, are called feldspathoids, or just foids for short. I’ll have to research the etymology of -oid, but that for such unusual suffixes can be hard to find.
But for the love of all things sacred, as a hairdresser, I request you close your eyes during your shampoo service. But definitely don't coo or moan
How else would you know I am enjoying the process?
Who is cooing?!?
What drug were you on at the time of your comment?
"...her experiences abroad--" For just an instant it sounded like "...her experience as a broad--"
Speaking of words, there's one that specifically applies to situations outlined in your Tolkien-Hobbit story: cryptomnesia.
Nice to know I gave my puppy, Dexter, the right name. He's definitely my right hand man (service dog in training).
Isn't it odd though, that the TV character Dexter is rather sinister?
And I could mean the one out of Dexter's Laboratory or the serial killer serial killer.
My guy is pit bull and rottweiler. Nothing sinister about him. His sister is a bichon name Jakey (Jakob) after a pomeranian I had of the same name who was nicknamed Cujo the attack fluffle. Jakob means to follow or supplant, which she intends to do after her older sister passes (Janyce, from Janus, the God who guards the gates to the underworld with one face toward the living and the other towards the dead). Etymology of names is interesting.
Yus!!! Someone else who grew up with Dino Park Tycoon. Loved that game...
As for robot, it's the word for labour and work in many slavic languages, not just czech! I never made the connection before!
"Nymph Echo" is a good name for a band.
Band
@june haziran july temmuz u
I was going to commit that the Bouquet is very similar to what we use in Arabic 'Baqah' باقة so I thought we borrowed it from English, but I decided to search first and i found the word Baqah was used in old classic Arabic and it was used to describe bunch of non-wood plant like watercress or Portulaca so in old Arabic they say 'Baqah" of Portulaca or Portulaca 'Baqah'
so maybe it's the other way around 🤔
We all had a good laugh when the real estate agent for a friend listed his property like this: “with a landscaped patio for dining al dente!” (Of course, she should have used the Italian expression “al fresco”, for outdoors, not the one for cooking pasta “to the tooth”.
Delightful! Especially your playful innuendo about 69, which eroticized the whole performance of origin stories that of course originate in the mouth.
"Orang-Utan" because of their hair colour is also the origin word for the australian word "ranga", meaning "a red-haired person"
eg: "another Weasley ranga!"
Love learning these kind of bonus facts in the comments!
I havent followed through with research, but i really thought it was more about original than orange......besides, the further u go back, the more words seem the same, such as all of the -wer words (word lol, worth, weird, war, warn, .....etc.)
A little too quick, and at once extremely interesting!
Thank you! I'm a word nerd from birth (I think) and enjoyed this garaticulating good video.
Haha wait now I need the story behind garaticulating.
@@MentalFloss Garaticulating is a word I used in a short story I wrote about 40 years ago. I made it up and its meaning is something like "soul cleansing" but with a wee bit more denotation. My early 20s self was trying to be cute, I did do some research and it did have roots somewhere, but over time the root escapes me.
I have used it over the years, especially in business communication, and most people just fluff over the word pretending that they know the meaning. Over the years, it's been my little joke, especially to trip up my superiors.
Used again, "I just uploaded a new song, 'Justifiable Jaywalking' to my Soundcloud account for a future UA-cam music video. It was garaticulating to make and garaticulating listening to the finished product."
I figured a video on word etymology would be a good place to spring this on people.
Keep up the great work on Mental Floss. I have enjoyed The Floss for a long, long time, even as a print medium. Thank you again.
@@artkincell Hahaha thanks for the kind words, and for the explanation. It was truly (and I do not say this lightly) graticulating.
@@MentalFloss You get it.
I'm curious about words like tycoon, pundit, guru, kahuna, honcho... as a category of word that jumps language.
Words that can be used as metaphors/references.
Obviously, foreign foods and new technology jumps language. Toponyms (waterloo as a defeat) and eponyms (Benedict Arnold as a traitor) are their own category.
I'm curious about what kinds of words are more likely to jump language.
Ummm yes, the King dying is literally and figuratively the end of the Chess game. If the King can go to a "safe" (non death creating) square, the game continues. But the ending move is called "Checkmate". "Check" means "I am warning you that I can take (kill) your King unless you block/move it. But I can see at least one way to do that". Check is much shorter.
Bugs is using his Bronx-Brooklyn accent to say "moron" when he says "Ma--ROON." He also says "Im-BESS-ul."
Just a heads up, Sir Edward Coke is actually pronounced "Cook" :)
There is a type of ocean fish called a dolphin. You've probably seen it offered in stores and restaurants under its more market-friendly Hawaiian name, mahi-mahi. It's thought they are called this because they swim ahead of sailing ships, the way porpoise dolphins do.
Yooooo this is like fun with flags but even better!
"Cowpox Puss" is a good name for a country punk band. "Capital City of Hell" is their debut record.
3:38 i had to translate that quote from the ambiguities to understand it. the only word i didn't feel the need to translate was night-life. i want those 5mins of my life back. booted out onto a noisy main road at night. (translated out of context - i never read it)
Stuff you can buy in American dispensaries now also - it's not necessary to waste money going all the way to holland.
A perfectly cromulent video 👏
I love this video, I've watched it a few times (yes, I'm that sad, I love etymology l. But each time you reach "obstetrix", my mind conjures up an image of the midwife from Asterix the Gaul's village. No idea if there was a character like that, but it would work!
I made a comment on another channel recently calling a politician a maroon. Half the people corrected me saying I spelled moron wrong….😳
wait wait wait... vacca is pronounced "waka" so Fozzie Bear's catchphrase is "cow cow"? lol
muppet cows
Exactly what I thought when I heard the pronunciation.
Waka Waka Waka = cow cow cow. That Muppet speaks the language of loooove.
Vacca is pronounced as VACCA. With a V. I don't know why she said Wacca.
@@vericacvetkovic9093 because in Latin there is no "V" sound. V is pronounced as w or u
@@vericacvetkovic9093 but modern Latin does have a modern English "V" sound but I'm sure she was referring to the classical or original pronunciation of "V' which would have been W or U.
"Click, Clack, Moo" by Cronin/Lewin is my recommendation for cow-with-typewriter fiction.
Uisge beatha is the Scottish form of Gaelic (which is pronounced Gah-lick, not Gay-lick), and is pronounced more like Oosh-ka beh-ha. Ish-ka ba-ha, the Irish version, is spelled Uisce beatha. The two Gaelics are similar, but different. Sláinte!
You made learning fun!
Cop: round our way, it used to be "off", rather than "out" - copping off with the prettiest girl.
I read somewhere that "cop" comes from the Latin for "catch".
[] French has "gauche" for left, which English uses for socially awkward - and awkward, I read, is Old English for "to the left" [And the French for "right" is "droit", which we've adopted as "adroit"]
Tis a fair cop.
In a Bugs Bunny cartoon, Bugs uses the word for Elmer "he's a regular Nimrod" "What a maroon" for moron.
26:55 I feel personally attacked! Lmao!
Love this
I think that you should have used the info about "Centaur" and "Werewolf." Taur means bull, hence Tauros the bull, and the Spanish word for bull being "toro." "Cent" is the same word for 100 such as in CENTury, and perCENT. So it actually means 100 bulls. This makes other "taur" creature names make no sense. Such as some people using "cowtaur" which would only make it a cow bull.
The ONE being that it makes sense is the Minotaur which translates to man bull.
Same thing with werewolf. The "were" means "man." So to give anything "were" features would be to make it more humanlike, not more wolf-like.
(2:25) I find it interesting how "capere" becomes "caperay", but "capia" didn't become "capiey". English speakers adding random diphthongs to words without diphthongs is weird but interesting.
Love the etymology of words. So many have been corrupted since. I didn’t get through watching this however. I like smaller bits at a time. I left another comment which seems to have disappeared for some reason. I mentioned the first word and maybe was censored, sharing some vital information in relation. Idk.
I thought that 'chess' derived from Persian 'Shah dresh' (Shah's dread - xadrez in Portuguese, ajedrez in Spanish).
I love your work.
Annnnnd you.
Baf
The problem with etymologists is that they can't consider punning like the philologists. The radical etymon in pandemonium , diamon , plays off the word dominion.
I love erymology. Learned when I was little and in looking up a meaning in the dictionary . Which just lead to the pronuncistion, derivation and all the neighbouring words. Plus those with circular definitions. Sooo frustrating.
Interesting fact about clue-clew etymology in Turkish. Clue in turkish literally means "the head/beginning of of rope" (or is it called tail in english?)
3... Kap (Grab,To Get) Albanian Gheg
7...Pa An (everywhere) Dem (Damage)
8... La (Leave/Let/Wash-Law) Bor (Done-Snow) Leave Done(Work)
14... Mor (Take) ta Gje (Will find back to you)
love this
You talked about dolphin but don't mention why the future king was called a dauphin in French... I am disappointed. :)
25:01 I head this as "her experience as a broad" 😆
That’s how I heard it too and had to shake it off “no, she clearly didn’t call herself a broad.” With an inner laugh.
This was delightful, though I'm a little disappointed to not see "Cerberus" on here.
Corruption of words is fascinating. I love to learn about how it shaped the words we have today, but I hate seeing it happen in real time.
If enough people get a word wrong for a long enough time, the meaning will change. And that's how we got American English.
Yes. Note "could care less". The correct grammar is "couldn't care less", but so many people omit the "not" but it is taken as correct, and will become strengthened over time.
@@windsorpatb Americans are notorious for that one.
Bro that’s how you get literally every language in all of human history. There is no ”corruption” of language, only language change.
@@SJ-ym4yt Ne ĉiu lingvo, frato.
Good to see Erin is doing better, though she looks like she's been under some heavy weather.
"WHAT A MAROON" is simply a word play on: "WHAT A MORON".
Even back in the old days Bugs Bunny was politically correct to protect the minds of youngsters.
You ever watch 1940s Bugs Bunny?
@@fmlAllthetime
All of the time that Looney Toons was on. Loved those crazy characters.
16... Si Nis Terr , As it starts (Wrong/Dark)
24...Pun(Work) Dit (Knows/knowet/Day"bright) =Specialist
29... Nim (Help)Rod(None/Without) Un helped. Self done.
34...Del (to come out) Hin(Enter) come out and enter back
11:39 पण्डित or पंडित are acceptable. Whatever is on the screen is gibberish.. Which brings us to the origins of the word "gibberish"
Citation: hi.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A4%AA%E0%A4%A3%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%A1%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%A4 and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandit
Carthusian is pronounced Car-Tu-see-an. It’s a French word, so Th is pronounced as T, even if written. Foreign words excepted, I’m not sure how they handle them, but given the prevalence of Th in English, I hear a lot of Francophones pronouncing it like D when speaking English, or even Zh. It’s always tough to reproduce sounds not in one’s native language, like the Greek Kh, for me.
Nimrod was a king in Babylonia who married his mother and tried to make his tower it is believed his birthday is on December 25th and upon his death his wife mother told everyone that a pine stump was near where he was buried and the next day it was a full grown pine tree so she said if you put a pinetree in your house to honor nimrods birthday he will come and hang presents on the pine tree thats a large reason the jehovah witnesses beliefs donot celebrate christmas they believe jesus was born in a different time of year september i believe
Budgie from Budgerigar from Australian Aboriginie for "Good eating"
If you picture a Roman legion with hundreds of men standing shoulder to shoulder, their shields protecting the comrade on their left and wielding a sword in the right hand, you can see why a "lefty" might be a bit of a problem. Presumably he had to learn to fight with the "wrong hand," which could make him somewhat awkward. In a mano-a-mano situation, stabbing you with that "wrong hand" could be seen as truly "sinister"!