Rob here with a warning not to come to me for medical advice! Macular degeneration is so called because it effects part of the retina called the 'macula'. Macula gets its name from the Latin for a spot or a blemish/stain (because it's a little dot). So I got the etymology right, but not the physiology. 👀 And Jess here noting that I was incorrect when I said that "nocent" is from a root meaning "knowing" or "to know." Rather, as some commenters have noted, it's from the Latin nocere "to harm." That's what I get for riffing!
A+ episode. I enjoy this topic too much! I heard this on NPR years ago and always remembered how much I loved it. It's from The New Yorker, July 25, 1994, by Jack Winter. "How I Met My Wife." It had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very chalant, despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate. I was furling my wieldy umbrella for the coat check when I saw her standing alone in a corner. She was a descript person, a woman in a state of total array. Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled, and she moved in a gainly way. I wanted desperately to meet her, but I knew I'd have to make bones about it since I was travelling cognito. Beknownst to me, the hostess, whom I could see both hide and hair of, was very proper, so it would be skin off my nose if anything bad happened. And even though I had only swerving loyalty to her, my manners couldn't be peccable. Only toward and heard-of behavior would do. Fortunately, the embarrassment that my maculate appearance might cause was evitable. There were two ways about it, but the chances that someone as flappable as I would be ept enough to become persona grata or a sung hero were slim. I was, after all, something to sneeze at, someone you could easily hold a candle to, someone who usually aroused bridled passion. So I decided not to risk it. But then, all at once, for some apparent reason, she looked in my direction and smiled in a way that I could make heads and tails of. I was plussed. It was concerting to see that she was communicado, and it nerved me that she was interested in a pareil like me, sight seen. Normally, I had a domitable spirit, but, being corrigible, I felt capacitated -- as if this were something I was great shakes at -- and forgot that I had succeeded in situations like this only a told number of times. So, after a terminable delay, I acted with mitigated gall and made my way through the ruly crowd with strong givings. Nevertheless, since this was all new hat to me and I had no time to prepare a promptu speech, I was petuous. Wanting to make only called-for remarks, I started talking about the hors d'oeuvres, trying to abuse her of the notion that I was sipid, and perhaps even bunk a few myths about myself. She responded well, and I was mayed that she considered me a savory character who was up to some good. She told me who she was. "What a perfect nomer," I said, advertently. The conversation become more and more choate, and we spoke at length to much avail. But I was defatigable, so I had to leave at a godly hour. I asked if she wanted to come with me. To my delight, she was committal. We left the party together and have been together ever since. I have given her my love, and she has requited it.
When I was about 15 I came across this sentence. "The army was underfed." It threw me. Un-derfed. Is there a word 'derfed?' I asked my father what it meant. He also had no idea. A few minutes later he said "How about under-fed." We had a good laugh.
albeit and nevertheless (and nonetheless) are weird words like this too haha, as if they might be al- | bight and ne- | verthe-less, and no- | nethe-less
Having both of you bouncing off each other and showing excitement about your mutual revelations is far more entertaining than a single entomologist struggling to have others share his or her passion for words. It’s fun listening to two people from very different backgrounds united in their interest in the origins and usage of English language words.
Not really. "ineptus" in latin meant "not appropriate", from the positive "aptus" = Appropriate (the negative prefix "in" often chanced the first voyel of the following root.) "Adept" is from "adipiscor" = I reach something: "adeptus" is someone who reaches a place, or who obtains something, or who joins a group.
@@nicolettabiardi7128 Sorry Nicoletta, I think you're wrong here. From my schoolboy latin I think adeptus was one who has atttained something and adept seems like a good antonym for inept
Since you brought Countdown's always magnificent Susie Dent into this discussion of missing words, I cannot let pass the opportunity to mention the instance on Qi with Sandi Toksvig asking the panelists if they knew about just such "orphaned negative" words. She brought up "ineffable" and "effable" and Sara Pascoe said that she had heard women use that lost word in phrases such as, "he's got nice trousers on today; he's totally effable." Totally brilliant, Sara.
14:37 As the great Douglas Adams put it, "Let us think the unthinkable, let us do the undoable, let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all."
Jess, your anecdote was similar to my experience as a child; I would ask my dad a random question, as children do, and if he didn’t know the answer he would tell me to look it up. Fortunately, he bought a collection of encyclopedias for us. But, if that wasn’t enough, there was a library two blocks away which I explored constantly. I feel very fortunate for my Dads honesty and not just making up an answer to appease me. I learned far more looking things up myself and getting lost through a rabbit hole of knowledge. Rob, Jess, I really love this series, please keep going.
Rob and Jess, I find your conversations fascinating. More importantly, I have a son, now 45, who has been deaf since he was 3-1/2 years old. While most of his daily life function in ASL (American Sign Language), we luckily provided him with CC TV (before it was commonly available) and a TDD telephone early on so his English skills are excellent. I am thinking of providing him the link to your podcasts as I suspect he will find them fascinating.
That's wonderful, George! We hope he enjoys the show! We do take time to edit up the closed captions because the terms from various languages and stages of English can get tricky-so hopefully he finds it accessible as well.
Rob's comment about the pronunciation of "Ruths" reminds me of Tolkien's use of "dwarves" instead of the correct "dwarfs". As a philologist, he was allegedly embarrassed by this apparent mistake, but later said he did it to deliberately make The Hobbit sound more ancient. (His plural has, of course, become more common today.)
There's a story (perhaps apocryphal) that before writing about Middle Earth, Prof. Tolkien helped to edit the Oxford English Dictionary. When his publisher pointed out that the correct plural for "dwarf" is "dwarfs", according to the OED, he replied with something along the lines of "I wrote the OED, so shut up."
I was thinking maybe it was from Thin Blue Line. I'll never forget that time Constable Goody thought the ER on Buckingham Palace's gate was pronounced as "errr." He said, "You know... 'er what lives in the palace!" As an American who saw that episode just before my first UK visit, it's all I could think about seeing the emblem everywhere!
Macular degeneration is not staining of the vision, it is the degeneration of the macula, a yellow spot that contains a high concentration of photo receptors. Thus to be maculate is not necessarily bad. Dalmations are born immaculate but later develop their spots.
The full name of the macula is macula lutea, yellow stain. According to the wikipedia article, the yellowness of the macula is not readily visible in a living eye because the red of blood overpowers it, but after death or surgical removal of an eye, the yellow color becomes visible.
Love your work both of you. I am a particularly pedantic word nerd. This blends in with my other obsession which is grammar. So I couldn’t help noticing that Jess said “you and I” at 21:07 when she should have said “you and me” - sorry, I can’t help myself!
Well, flabber my gast! As a long-time language nerd, I'd never made the connection between the English "disgust" and the Spanish "gustar" (meaning "to please") LOL - I'd just made the mental leap from "maculate" to "macchiato" when Rob brought it up - in fact, I'd paused the video to comment that very thing. 21:05 - a pedantic screech at Jess saying "for you and I"!
Being a Southerner, you not only know about innocent being used negatively, but my all time favorite, "Bless your heart," which can have a multitude of connotations depending not only on context but also tonal inflections.
I enjoy your podcasts very much, but this one came at me from a different direction. When Jess said that a southern thing could be a "complisult" I spit my coffee across the room! My wife is southern and I learned this one the hard way, from her family the first time we met. So keep doing what you do, bless y'alls hearts! 😉 Truely love what you do!
Yes, a southerner here and I also loved the word "complisult." My grandmother (from the hills of northeast Georgia) would say, "well, it tried." She meant that he/she/they tried to do something and it didn't work out, but it can be understood to be more of an insult depending on the tone of voice and extremity of the southern accent.
To hear how many perfectly reasonable, succinct, and useful words just stopped getting used, except in frozen formations and negatives, certainly does dislodge a few gruntles from me. Grrml, gromble, grr.
@6:12 chalant reminded me of the word of the Pokémon's name Chandelure. It looks like chandelier, which I imagine would have held candles back before lightbulbs.
Yep, "chandelle" is the French word for candle. A "chandelier" is a candlestick; "Chandeleur" is Candlemas, a Roman Catholic holiday about candles. The Latin word for candle comes from "to shine". I don't think it has a direct link to Chaloir because this one comes from the Latin word for heat. I mean heat and shine are probably related in some way but it probably goes back millennia 😅
Listening to this, I was reminded of some of L. Frank Baum's silliness in his short story "Ozma and the Little Wizard." It features three imps named Olite, Udent, and Ertinent. It went right over my head when I was a kid; I just accepted them as strange fantasy names. The penny didn't drop until I was an adult.
I have always loved looking up new words. As a child I used to read a lot of books lying in bed and there was a pocket dictionary permanently on the shelf above my bed so I could look up new words straight away!
Oh my gosh Roband Jess I just love this series of RUclips videos. I feel like I am just somewhat of a word geek myself and Itook two years of Latin in high school and one year of French in high school and I especially like the various variants of words that you have unraveled in such an energetic, thorough 😊👌🏻 and ebullient way in this video!
If there were a happy-hunting-ground in the sky after death, my version would definitely have you two in it and I would spend eons enjoying your enthusiasm for etymology. I rarely learn anything new about individual words in our family of Indo-European languages (I too have been down many a metaphorical rabbit hole in my time) but your videos have on occasion supplemented my knowledge as well as consistently delighting me. Thank you both so much.
13:31 As someone with intimate familiarity with macular degeneration, it doesn't mean that. I'm sure there's an etymological link, but it's not about your vision being stained. There is a part of the eye called the macula, it's in the retina, the region of light sensing cells in the back of the eye, and the macula is the most densely populated part pod that region
@@mythai05 Ah, so I see. Thank you. I'm so used to pinned comments being full of nothing but sponsor links that I've piglet up a hair of immediately scrolling past them. Poly just found the channel today, so I hadn't broken out of my knee jerk reaction yet. Thank you.
Re "nonchalant", I've been looking up French resources that point to nonchalant being first mentioned in the 13th century in French texts. It comes from the verb nonchaloir (to be unconcerned or even negligent). That in turn comes from chaloir which ultimately goes back to an impersonal verb "chielt" recorded in a 9th century manuscript. The verb comes from the intransitive Latin "calere" (to be hot, passionate or driven, pronounced KA-leh-reh) in the figurative sense of to be worried as used by Plautus and Cicero. So I am dubious about the word nonchalant having been coined in English first.
from "My Hope Is Built On Nothing Less" by Robert Critchley "His oath, his covenant, his blood Supports me in the 'whelming flood". Through, the apostrophe seems to imply this to be a shortening of overwhelming.
The -th in English represents a measurable quality, like health, wealth, length, width, breadth, depth, etc... So rue in Old English carried the meaning of sorrow, emotional distress, regret, and repentence, but in Old Norse it shared the noun root with that which is measured by how much emotional pain it causes you. So being ruthless means that you have no emotional pain from something, aka don't care about your actions.
"Apt:inept" goes back to Old Latin when the stress was on the first syllable. The 'a' in what would have been "inaptus" was unstressed, so it turned into "ineptus", and stayed that way when the stress shifted to being counted from the end (in this word "ep" was stressed) in Classical Latin.
21:00 -> I grew up in a family with an encyclopedia. We were talking about something, and maybe someone would wonder: "Who lives on Borneo?" or whatever. And someone would fetch the relevant volume, could be something like: "VII Kant - Lemming", meaning volume seven from Kant to Lemming - the famous father of all religion... ;-) I consider this one of many great gifts from my parents.
I'm just loving this 'joining of the forces' and I find the history and hidden meaning of words to be intriguing. Always loved Rob's 'casts and sadly never came across Jess before. I'm thoroughly enjoying seeing her on my computer - takes my breath away.
I love these videos and all things etymology. I have macular dystrophy and didn't know it meant that my sight is stained. But it makes so much sense as I see a lot of spots and specks and flashing lights so it is stained! Thanks for all the learnings
"Inflammable" is the original word. "Flammable" is a back formation from it. Notice that a doctor diagnoses an inflammation, not a flammation, and a demagogue might make an inflammatory speech, but not a flammatory one.
@@hadz8671 In french, we have the noun "ébriété" (ebriaty) to describe, in a formal way, the state of being drunk. But we don't have the negative form, or the verb neither.
Flammable was invented because there was some confusion with some people that inflammable meant "not flammable" vs. its actual meaning of "able to be inflamed". This confusion was deemed absolutely unacceptable because of the extreme risk to the safety of persons or property should that mixup occur and so flammable was born. Now that flammable exists and is the much more common word there's even more room for confusion but because inflammable is never used in situations where any misunderstanding might present a safety issue it's not a problem in real life. Mostly it just confuses people when reading old literature. Because flammable is almost always the word used now, inflammable is well on its way to dying out.
@@pjl22222 Ages ago, I enjoyed reading Jean Aitchison's "Language Change: Progress or Decay?" She discusses topics like this. It's a fascinating and witty book.
English is not my native language, but as a (Brazilian) Portuguese speaker, Latin roots come easily to mind. "Innocent" is derived from the present participle (something like the "ing" form of English verbs) of Latin "nocere" ("nocens"), meaning to hurt, to harm. The "non-negative" form of the word in modern English would be "noxious", also derived from the same "noc-" root, but in adjective form ("noxius")
Haddywist in Dutch would have been short for 'had ik dat wist' or 'had ik dat geweten' ( if I had only known). Wist is the singular past tense of weten ( to know) that seems the same as in wisdom.
Really glad I found your channel. I study last names, and etymology is very tied to that. I also look for the root of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew words. Knowing the root adds so much flavor to the word. But I don't like 'ents'.
"Evitable" (what is possible to avoid), is plain latin from e(x)vitare (to keep away from, to avoid). Old form was "éviter à" (to avoid AT something) still used in some expressions and with some reminiscences in aged patois speakers. (from Dictionnaire Historique de la Langue Française)
I love your videos. I have been diving down the linguistics phraseology rabbit hole for years. I just discovered the Greek word used to describe “Heaven “ in the early Bible was synonymous with the Greek God of the sky. Kind of ironic, I thought.
Regarding "inevitable", I was intrigued to discover how that links to "unavoidable" as I was studying Portuguese. In Portuguese, "to avoid" is "evitar", and at first, that made me think of "evade". A bit of etymological searching later, and I confirmed the connection. Inevitable is un-evade-able is unavoidable.
When you've moved the fourth time and you find out that the same unnecessary knickknack is still with you you can start to call it a posable thing. I mean it clearly was not disposable.
She said "term of phrase" at 19:26! Yall need to go back in time and put that in the eggcorn episode. I didn't even know that one existed! Now to rewind and listen to what she was actually saying when that happened...
Huh, I had to double check -- you're right! That was a slip of the tongue rather than ignorance of the idiom. Seems I need to do some vocal exercises before these pods. :) - JZ
Macula in ophthalmology comes from macula lutea, or yellow spot, the physical appearance of the portion of the retina that is used for fine central vision
Fascinating! I've been watching your videos for the past few hours, because I just couldn't stop after finding the most recent one. I actually knew some of Rob's videos about the German language. (I'm not a native English speaker, had some English lessons in school and by ways of the internet learned the language over the past 25 years or so) But why am I commenting on a 2 months old podcast? Well I was totally surprised when Jess brought up the term "haddywyt", which was totally unknown to me before that. However, it sounded to me like the exact phrase I'd use to describe the concept of that expression. In the local dialect we would say: "Hätt' i' g'wißt.." (Hätte ich gewußt...) [Had I known...] to start expressing regrets for our actions. I could be totally wrong, but that word seems to resemble a contraction of that phrase (or a similar one), it is hard to imagine, that it's not related. It certainly wouldn't be the only case of such a coincidence, but it was so surprisingly obvious to me, that I couldn't leave it unmentioned without later saying: "Haddywyst nobody else noticed, I would have pointed it out."
Jess is rapidly becoming my RUclips crush. Not only is she both smart and beautiful… but that moment of absolute joy when “macchiato” came up… that totally got me.
Re 21:30, if unavoidable and inevitable are cognates and not just translations, then it seems likely that they do share roots with "evade" way back in PIE, because the "vade" in "evade", as Rob says, means to go, and the "void" root in "avoid" (it seems the full etymology of "evitare" is not known, hence relying on those being cognates) means to leave, and aside from going and leaving being very similar meanings, their PIE roots differ in only one letter, weh vs wehd, so with such similar words of such similar meanings I would really expect them to be related.
I'm probably about to say something already known, but the 'gust' part of 'disgust', or at least the latin ancestor verb 'gusto' does find its way into English in 'gustation' and even in the Italian borrowing 'gusto' (as in 'to do something with gusto').
Love this new format from you guys. I also have to say, in no way detracting from her intellect and ability, that I find Jess’ smile totally captivating. I really enjoy watching you guys discuss back and forth. Lots more please!
Rob, you may want to look at macula degeneration again. It's not about the eyesight being spotty. Macula is a term in anatomy. It describes the spot at the center of the retina, where all the sensor cells are cones, good for color reception (as opposed to a mix of cones and rods in the rest of the retina). This spot has a slightly different color when looking at the eye background. It was therefore called the 'macula', the mark. Macula degeneration refers to receptor cells in the center of your field of vision dying. The macula degenerates. Unrelated: As you speak German: you may have come across "Makel", and "makellos".
The full name of the macula is macula lutea, yellow stain. According to the wikipedia article, the yellowness of the macula is not readily visible in a living eye because the red of blood overpowers it, but after death or surgical removal of an eye, the yellow color becomes visible.
I remember playing a golf video game a couple of decades ago and every time you messed up a shot, your opponent would come out with some sarcastic comment. The one that stuck with me was missing a short putt and being told "Nonchalant putts count the same as chalant putts."
"Innocent" in Québec French especially (in France French it sounds archaic but understandable) can be used to mean "not knowing the danger you're in" especially to a child who does something bad. "Innocence" the noun of this adjective in French is still used to mean naive, not knowing things, and ultimately: childish.
- Nonchalant is a participle of the old Verb "Chaloir" (to be worry or concerned with or by something) so nonchalant is someone who doesn't care by what surrounds him, someone not excited (not heated). - Chalant (or chaland) has another meaning, it's a client or customer doing his shoppings in the same store. This word nowadays is used only in economy and retail business. It means literally "heated" clients attracted by the marchandise exposed in the store.
12:38 but innocent doesn’t mean “not knowing”, does it ? It has to be “not doing harm”, from Latin nocere (“nuire” in French). Just a hunch, but I’m pretty sure it’s solid
An enjoyable episode and one in which you both seem to have hit your stride - a lovely effervescence - with your ruths'less pursuit of lost orphans and your bold determination, the pair of you, to give no further feck. - - - Very off topic re: cumbersome swords. A sword becomes cumbersome and, to use an ept example, unwieldy when its balance is off. A sword gets its balance from the blade's counterweight: the pommel. From short swords up to the mighty claymore (most often used as a two-hander), the balance point is 4 finger widths above the cross piece - Note: this pertains primarily to the Western tradition from the Vikings through to the mid-1500s, wherein 'sword' is a byword for that length of martial steel which has the cross piece down near, but not at, one end. Earlier pokie things like the Roman gladius utilised a very different fighting technique (and I can't help but think of the thousands of retired legionaries sitting about complaining bitterly about their 'tennis' elbows... shoulders... necks).
On "gruntled": In southern Germany / Austria, somebody may be called "Grantler" (pronounced like "gruntler") who usually is rather disgruntled and tends to complain about everything.
I'd always understood that 'nocent' meant 'harmful' or 'causing harm' , and an online search has confirmed this. As far as I know, 'nocent', is related to 'noxious' (from Latin 'nocere', to harm) rather than Greek-derived words like 'gnosis' (''knowledge' or 'knowing').
Jess, I might be enjoying you as much as I enjoy Rob. Do you do any youtube on your own? Mind you, Jess & Rob together are the best. Thanks for a great collaboration. Frank from Adelaide Australia
Macula is Latin for „spot“ - like a spot on a cloth. So maculate means something like spotted. The medical term refers to the macula densa, the spot in your eye, where the optic nerve enters the retina (the actual light sensitive „webby“ sheath in our eyes). So when you have a degradation of the optic nerve, you loose that spot along with your eyesight. Also interesting is the maculatur - an extra sheet of paper in between the pages of a handwritten book to soak up ink, that hasn’t dried up yet, so it becomes maculate but preserving the other pages of the book to become stained - it keeps them immaculate!
We have in Spanish the word 'mácula', rather formal, that means stain. And the verb 'macular' meaning obviously to stain, and also to smear, tarnish, sully (a reputation).
Something that doesn't exist in English but is kind of funny in other Germanic languages such as German, Danish and Swedish is maculate as a verb meaning to destroy, annul, cross out or smash into pulp. It's most common use in Swedish and Danish makulera/makulere is to annul an invoice for a cancelled order, by so to speak crossing it out by staining the document. Historically it could also be used for staining someone reputation by badmouthing them.
Hello, fellow language lovers! I absolutely adore your videos! BUT - Jess, Jess, Jess!! „for you and I“?! After teaching English for almost (a very long time), this is perhaps my pet peeve number 1! 😊 But not being innocent (in the naive sense - I am not guilty of this error), I fear I‘m on the losing side of this battle and apparently have been for centuries.
I knew someone who used the word irregardless in the same way I use regardless. I assume that this has crossed the Atlantic. But it melts my brain with all the negatives added to regard or gard?
Aspersion is also part of the Mass. The priest walks down the aisle throwing holy water on everyone with something called an aspergillum. So "casting aspersion" really is negative, it is symbolically trying to bless or even re-baptise someone, to drive out a demon. The indication you need to do so implies they have fallen deeply into error. (Bless their hearts!). The counterpart would actually be dispersion, no? Aspersion is what you do to the person, (you spread stuff toward them) but dispersion is what you do to the water in the process (you spread it around).
Rob here with a warning not to come to me for medical advice! Macular degeneration is so called because it effects part of the retina called the 'macula'. Macula gets its name from the Latin for a spot or a blemish/stain (because it's a little dot). So I got the etymology right, but not the physiology. 👀
And Jess here noting that I was incorrect when I said that "nocent" is from a root meaning "knowing" or "to know." Rather, as some commenters have noted, it's from the Latin nocere "to harm." That's what I get for riffing!
In other words, Rob, your description of the macula was... peccable!
@@annieoakley3516 Getting your maculae pecked is definitely to be avoided.
"You're so innocent. Bless your heart."
😮
I love how two experts can get this wrong. Always tells us to check our sources more than our memory.
A+ episode. I enjoy this topic too much! I heard this on NPR years ago and always remembered how much I loved it. It's from The New Yorker, July 25, 1994, by Jack Winter. "How I Met My Wife." It had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very chalant, despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate.
I was furling my wieldy umbrella for the coat check when I saw her standing alone in a corner. She was a descript person, a woman in a state of total array. Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled, and she moved in a gainly way.
I wanted desperately to meet her, but I knew I'd have to make bones about it since I was travelling cognito. Beknownst to me, the hostess, whom I could see both hide and hair of, was very proper, so it would be skin off my nose if anything bad happened. And even though I had only swerving loyalty to her, my manners couldn't be peccable. Only toward and heard-of behavior would do.
Fortunately, the embarrassment that my maculate appearance might cause was evitable. There were two ways about it, but the chances that someone as flappable as I would be ept enough to become persona grata or a sung hero were slim. I was, after all, something to sneeze at, someone you could easily hold a candle to, someone who usually aroused bridled passion.
So I decided not to risk it. But then, all at once, for some apparent reason, she looked in my direction and smiled in a way that I could make heads and tails of.
I was plussed. It was concerting to see that she was communicado, and it nerved me that she was interested in a pareil like me, sight seen. Normally, I had a domitable spirit, but, being corrigible, I felt capacitated -- as if this were something I was great shakes at -- and forgot that I had succeeded in situations like this only a told number of times. So, after a terminable delay, I acted with mitigated gall and made my way through the ruly crowd with strong givings.
Nevertheless, since this was all new hat to me and I had no time to prepare a promptu speech, I was petuous. Wanting to make only called-for remarks, I started talking about the hors d'oeuvres, trying to abuse her of the notion that I was sipid, and perhaps even bunk a few myths about myself.
She responded well, and I was mayed that she considered me a savory character who was up to some good. She told me who she was. "What a perfect nomer," I said, advertently. The conversation become more and more choate, and we spoke at length to much avail. But I was defatigable, so I had to leave at a godly hour. I asked if she wanted to come with me. To my delight, she was committal. We left the party together and have been together ever since. I have given her my love, and she has requited it.
THIS is AMAZING! Thanks so much for sharing it! Gotta warn though that I'm definitely stealing!
@@maryloumawson6006 By all means! I stole it from NPR and share it with whoever wants to nerd out with me.
When I was about 15 I came across this sentence. "The army was underfed." It threw me. Un-derfed. Is there a word 'derfed?' I asked my father what it meant. He also had no idea. A few minutes later he said "How about under-fed." We had a good laugh.
Like "misled". Is that "mizzled"?
albeit and nevertheless (and nonetheless) are weird words like this too haha, as if they might be al- | bight and ne- | verthe-less, and no- | nethe-less
used to read "embed" as if it were like "combed"
In german, darf is the first- person word for may/allowed. So, I looked at your comment and thought maybe its 'unallowed' 😂
Unionized: un-ionized or union-ized
Having both of you bouncing off each other and showing excitement about your mutual revelations is far more entertaining than a single entomologist struggling to have others share his or her passion for words. It’s fun listening to two people from very different backgrounds united in their interest in the origins and usage of English language words.
Etymologist. An entomologist studies insects.
malapropism!
Obviously I meant to write etymologist - either a ‘bug’ in my auto-correct spell check, or I’m going senile (my money is on the later!).
@@mbloy613 Why not both? The thought is not exactly strange to me.
@@mbloy613 if you study that bug will you become an entomologist?
With regard to “inept”, “adept” is a good opposite.
Not really. "ineptus" in latin meant "not appropriate", from the positive "aptus" = Appropriate (the negative prefix "in" often chanced the first voyel of the following root.) "Adept" is from "adipiscor" = I reach something: "adeptus" is someone who reaches a place, or who obtains something, or who joins a group.
@@nicolettabiardi7128 Sorry Nicoletta, I think you're wrong here. From my schoolboy latin I think adeptus was one who has atttained something and adept seems like a good antonym for inept
Why skip over just 'apt'?
In Scotland we can still hear the opposite of uncouth, where people can be described as 'couthy', i.e. warm, frfiendly, polite, welcoming etc.
I would consider "inept" to be unskilled, but "inapt" to be inappropriate to the situation. So an inept writer might make an inapt simile.
Since you brought Countdown's always magnificent Susie Dent into this discussion of missing words, I cannot let pass the opportunity to mention the instance on Qi with Sandi Toksvig asking the panelists if they knew about just such "orphaned negative" words. She brought up "ineffable" and "effable" and Sara Pascoe said that she had heard women use that lost word in phrases such as, "he's got nice trousers on today; he's totally effable."
Totally brilliant, Sara.
Sara's a hoot!
If I heard someone saying effable, I would think they were swearing! F-able!
Now I've learned something. 😊
14:37 As the great Douglas Adams put it, "Let us think the unthinkable, let us do the undoable, let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all."
Jess, your anecdote was similar to my experience as a child; I would ask my dad a random question, as children do, and if he didn’t know the answer he would tell me to look it up. Fortunately, he bought a collection of encyclopedias for us. But, if that wasn’t enough, there was a library two blocks away which I explored constantly. I feel very fortunate for my Dads honesty and not just making up an answer to appease me. I learned far more looking things up myself and getting lost through a rabbit hole of knowledge.
Rob, Jess, I really love this series, please keep going.
That's lovely. Thank you for sharing! - JZ
When I told my youngest daughter to “look it up” she replied “that’s what we have you for”
Your Dad deserves a pat on the back!
Rob and Jess, I find your conversations fascinating. More importantly, I have a son, now 45, who has been deaf since he was 3-1/2 years old. While most of his daily life function in ASL (American Sign Language), we luckily provided him with CC TV (before it was commonly available) and a TDD telephone early on so his English skills are excellent. I am thinking of providing him the link to your podcasts as I suspect he will find them fascinating.
That's wonderful, George! We hope he enjoys the show! We do take time to edit up the closed captions because the terms from various languages and stages of English can get tricky-so hopefully he finds it accessible as well.
Something can EXplode. Something else can IMplode.
Does that mean I am in a constant state of "ploding"?
"Plosive" is an actual word...an overly plosive "P" will cause you to make a microphone boom loudly and possibly get spat on as well...
I plood through another quiet day in my lounge wear, ever ready for action.
@@clareomarfran That brought back memories of one of the very first and very pixelated computer games.
No
I just thought of a way to make the traditional English tea with a dash of milk more trendy: rebrand it as tea macchiato.
As a word geek, and dictionary collector, I am really enjoying this channel. Not boring for me! 🤣🤣🤣
Nope. It’s NEVER boring!
Having the ability to look up definitions is why I love reading on e-books so much.
Rob's comment about the pronunciation of "Ruths" reminds me of Tolkien's use of "dwarves" instead of the correct "dwarfs". As a philologist, he was allegedly embarrassed by this apparent mistake, but later said he did it to deliberately make The Hobbit sound more ancient. (His plural has, of course, become more common today.)
There's a story (perhaps apocryphal) that before writing about Middle Earth, Prof. Tolkien helped to edit the Oxford English Dictionary. When his publisher pointed out that the correct plural for "dwarf" is "dwarfs", according to the OED, he replied with something along the lines of "I wrote the OED, so shut up."
- So what does inert mean?
- Well, it means that it's not ... ert
- It wouldn't ert a fly.
- Yes Minister, The Greasy Pole, BBC, 1981.
I was thinking maybe it was from Thin Blue Line. I'll never forget that time Constable Goody thought the ER on Buckingham Palace's gate was pronounced as "errr." He said, "You know... 'er what lives in the palace!" As an American who saw that episode just before my first UK visit, it's all I could think about seeing the emblem everywhere!
I'm reminded that The elder Blackett, real name Ruth, in Swallows And Amazons is known as Nancy instead, because "pirates are ruthless."
This is one of my new pleasures. Every time it pops up I get a warm happy feeling!
Macular degeneration is not staining of the vision, it is the degeneration of the macula, a yellow spot that contains a high concentration of photo receptors. Thus to be maculate is not necessarily bad. Dalmations are born immaculate but later develop their spots.
Staining not staying
@@rechmbrsAnd the etymology of "macula" is from Latin "stain"
This is true, but Rob’s point is slightly off. @AutoReport1 is pointing out that Rob is misunderstanding the meaning of macular degeneration.
The full name of the macula is macula lutea, yellow stain. According to the wikipedia article, the yellowness of the macula is not readily visible in a living eye because the red of blood overpowers it, but after death or surgical removal of an eye, the yellow color becomes visible.
Ruthless: “I wonder where Ruth is?”
Firesign Theater
The Further Adventures of Nick Danger: Third Eye
Noice
@@dwombat2759 You are CORRECT! Absolutely CORRECT, my dear Wombat!
Right here
My sister is Ruth. However she is far from being Ruthless! 😂
Or the misogynists Bible.
I love watching Jess and Rob, each an expert in his/her field, as they learn from each other What a happy show!
Love your work both of you. I am a particularly pedantic word nerd. This blends in with my other obsession which is grammar. So I couldn’t help noticing that Jess said “you and I” at 21:07 when she should have said “you and me” - sorry, I can’t help myself!
Well, flabber my gast! As a long-time language nerd, I'd never made the connection between the English "disgust" and the Spanish "gustar" (meaning "to please")
LOL - I'd just made the mental leap from "maculate" to "macchiato" when Rob brought it up - in fact, I'd paused the video to comment that very thing.
21:05 - a pedantic screech at Jess saying "for you and I"!
Personally, I’m fiberglassted!
Me gusto mucho.
@@papamouse5231 It's gusta not gusto.
@@nickmiller76 Gracias. I'm still learning.
My favorite is "pessimal" as the opposite of "optimal" which isn't exactly lost, but far less often used
Being a Southerner, you not only know about innocent being used negatively, but my all time favorite, "Bless your heart," which can have a multitude of connotations depending not only on context but also tonal inflections.
I enjoy your podcasts very much, but this one came at me from a different direction. When Jess said that a southern thing could be a "complisult" I spit my coffee across the room! My wife is southern and I learned this one the hard way, from her family the first time we met. So keep doing what you do, bless y'alls hearts! 😉 Truely love what you do!
Bless your heart! 🥰😉 - JZ
Yes, a southerner here and I also loved the word "complisult." My grandmother (from the hills of northeast Georgia) would say, "well, it tried." She meant that he/she/they tried to do something and it didn't work out, but it can be understood to be more of an insult depending on the tone of voice and extremity of the southern accent.
These vids (and their comment sections) are an awful lot of fun.
Awless ;)
I expected a delightful video, and I was appointed!
It wasn’t licious indeed
Could it be delightless?
By whom?
My new favorite podcast. Until now I have only known ravelled words, thank you; each episode leaves me a little more combobulated.
You two are absolutely delightful to watch.
My favorite is discombobulate. In the airport in Milwaukee Wisconsin, there is a “recombobulation station” just after the security checkpoint. Love it
You two are fast becoming my favourite podcast on the Internet. Thanks for the content.
We have truthful but not ruthful, but we have ruthless and not truthless. 😊
Rob and Jess, you are the best. The whole thing with immaculate, macular degeneration and macchiato was amazing! One of the best parts of my day
I've been watching this channel since the beginning and each episode is better than the one before. You are both great.
To hear how many perfectly reasonable, succinct, and useful words just stopped getting used, except in frozen formations and negatives, certainly does dislodge a few gruntles from me. Grrml, gromble, grr.
I am "whelmed" by this podcast. It's so calming.
@6:12 chalant reminded me of the word of the Pokémon's name Chandelure. It looks like chandelier, which I imagine would have held candles back before lightbulbs.
Yep, "chandelle" is the French word for candle. A "chandelier" is a candlestick; "Chandeleur" is Candlemas, a Roman Catholic holiday about candles.
The Latin word for candle comes from "to shine". I don't think it has a direct link to Chaloir because this one comes from the Latin word for heat. I mean heat and shine are probably related in some way but it probably goes back millennia 😅
Listening to this, I was reminded of some of L. Frank Baum's silliness in his short story "Ozma and the Little Wizard." It features three imps named Olite, Udent, and Ertinent. It went right over my head when I was a kid; I just accepted them as strange fantasy names. The penny didn't drop until I was an adult.
@karenSDR. It took me a while to figure it out. I'mp not too sharp.
I have always loved looking up new words. As a child I used to read a lot of books lying in bed and there was a pocket dictionary permanently on the shelf above my bed so I could look up new words straight away!
Oh my gosh Roband Jess I just love this series of RUclips videos. I feel like I am just somewhat of a word geek myself and Itook two years of Latin in high school and one year of French in high school and I especially like the various variants of words that you have unraveled in such an energetic, thorough 😊👌🏻 and ebullient way in this video!
If there were a happy-hunting-ground in the sky after death, my version would definitely have you two in it and I would spend eons enjoying your enthusiasm for etymology. I rarely learn anything new about individual words in our family of Indo-European languages (I too have been down many a metaphorical rabbit hole in my time) but your videos have on occasion supplemented my knowledge as well as consistently delighting me. Thank you both so much.
13:31 As someone with intimate familiarity with macular degeneration, it doesn't mean that. I'm sure there's an etymological link, but it's not about your vision being stained. There is a part of the eye called the macula, it's in the retina, the region of light sensing cells in the back of the eye, and the macula is the most densely populated part pod that region
Rob addressed the point in a pinned comment. He got the etymology right but the physiology wrong.
@@mythai05 Ah, so I see. Thank you. I'm so used to pinned comments being full of nothing but sponsor links that I've piglet up a hair of immediately scrolling past them. Poly just found the channel today, so I hadn't broken out of my knee jerk reaction yet. Thank you.
@@Great_Olaf5 You're welcome. I've done the same thing myself.
Mu wife and I do say "Wieldy" for something that's easy to use - like a well-designed garden tool.
Re "nonchalant", I've been looking up French resources that point to nonchalant being first mentioned in the 13th century in French texts. It comes from the verb nonchaloir (to be unconcerned or even negligent). That in turn comes from chaloir which ultimately goes back to an impersonal verb "chielt" recorded in a 9th century manuscript. The verb comes from the intransitive Latin "calere" (to be hot, passionate or driven, pronounced KA-leh-reh) in the figurative sense of to be worried as used by Plautus and Cicero.
So I am dubious about the word nonchalant having been coined in English first.
20:12 there's a story by isaac asimov called "the evitable conflict", although it is probably just a counterpart to inevitable.
In France, the adjective 'évitable' (avoidable) is as commonly used as his counterpart 'inévitable'.
@@Anne-Enez Thanks for that. Those of us with only school French wouldn't know.
@@hamishstewart5188 Thanks. You're welcome! Merci, de rien!
from "My Hope Is Built On Nothing Less" by Robert Critchley "His oath, his covenant, his blood Supports me in the 'whelming flood". Through, the apostrophe seems to imply this to be a shortening of overwhelming.
The -th in English represents a measurable quality, like health, wealth, length, width, breadth, depth, etc... So rue in Old English carried the meaning of sorrow, emotional distress, regret, and repentence, but in Old Norse it shared the noun root with that which is measured by how much emotional pain it causes you. So being ruthless means that you have no emotional pain from something, aka don't care about your actions.
"Apt:inept" goes back to Old Latin when the stress was on the first syllable. The 'a' in what would have been "inaptus" was unstressed, so it turned into "ineptus", and stayed that way when the stress shifted to being counted from the end (in this word "ep" was stressed) in Classical Latin.
21:00 -> I grew up in a family with an encyclopedia. We were talking about something, and maybe someone would wonder: "Who lives on Borneo?" or whatever. And someone would fetch the relevant volume, could be something like: "VII Kant - Lemming", meaning volume seven from Kant to Lemming - the famous father of all religion... ;-)
I consider this one of many great gifts from my parents.
I'm just loving this 'joining of the forces' and I find the history and hidden meaning of words to be intriguing. Always loved Rob's 'casts and sadly never came across Jess before. I'm thoroughly enjoying seeing her on my computer - takes my breath away.
I jess adore Jess.
I love these videos and all things etymology. I have macular dystrophy and didn't know it meant that my sight is stained. But it makes so much sense as I see a lot of spots and specks and flashing lights so it is stained! Thanks for all the learnings
Excellent podcast. Great to have two bouncing off each other. Reminder to Jess that it's "good for you and me" rather than "good for you and I".
A famous one, that looks like this but isn't actually, is "inflammable", which - surprisingly - just means "flammable".
Similarly "inebriated" and the rarer "ebriated" both mean drunk.
"Inflammable" is the original word. "Flammable" is a back formation from it. Notice that a doctor diagnoses an inflammation, not a flammation, and a demagogue might make an inflammatory speech, but not a flammatory one.
@@hadz8671 In french, we have the noun "ébriété" (ebriaty) to describe, in a formal way, the state of being drunk. But we don't have the negative form, or the verb neither.
Flammable was invented because there was some confusion with some people that inflammable meant "not flammable" vs. its actual meaning of "able to be inflamed". This confusion was deemed absolutely unacceptable because of the extreme risk to the safety of persons or property should that mixup occur and so flammable was born.
Now that flammable exists and is the much more common word there's even more room for confusion but because inflammable is never used in situations where any misunderstanding might present a safety issue it's not a problem in real life. Mostly it just confuses people when reading old literature.
Because flammable is almost always the word used now, inflammable is well on its way to dying out.
@@pjl22222 Ages ago, I enjoyed reading Jean Aitchison's "Language Change: Progress or Decay?" She discusses topics like this. It's a fascinating and witty book.
Endful, as opposed to endless, is something I thought of when having a discussion about early video games.
I remember a Strong Bad E-mail where he asked himself if something could be just plain couth.
English is not my native language, but as a (Brazilian) Portuguese speaker, Latin roots come easily to mind. "Innocent" is derived from the present participle (something like the "ing" form of English verbs) of Latin "nocere" ("nocens"), meaning to hurt, to harm. The "non-negative" form of the word in modern English would be "noxious", also derived from the same "noc-" root, but in adjective form ("noxius")
Regarding "whelming", it looks like it was a word in at least 1836, since it appears in the lyrics of a hymn composed in that year.
Haddywist in Dutch would have been short for 'had ik dat wist' or 'had ik dat geweten' ( if I had only known). Wist is the singular past tense of weten ( to know) that seems the same as in wisdom.
So wistdom
This is wonderful, thank you! - JZ
Really glad I found your channel. I study last names, and etymology is very tied to that. I also look for the root of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew words. Knowing the root adds so much flavor to the word. But I don't like 'ents'.
"Evitable" (what is possible to avoid), is plain latin from e(x)vitare (to keep away from, to avoid). Old form was "éviter à" (to avoid AT something) still used in some expressions and with some reminiscences in aged patois speakers. (from Dictionnaire Historique de la Langue Française)
"Why would you choose to be ignorant?" Love it! Does it follow that one should endeavour to be 'gnorant' instead?
The root is Greek "gnosis", wisdom. So "gnorant" could exist, it would be a delightful word!
Today at work someone used the word moralising as the opposite of demoralising, which reminded me to watch this video!
Thanks for another good post. As it happens, I was just wondering about “aspersions” and why the only thing we do with them is to cast them.
I love your videos. I have been diving down the linguistics phraseology rabbit hole for years. I just discovered the Greek word used to describe “Heaven “ in the early Bible was synonymous with the Greek God of the sky. Kind of ironic, I thought.
Regarding "inevitable", I was intrigued to discover how that links to "unavoidable" as I was studying Portuguese. In Portuguese, "to avoid" is "evitar", and at first, that made me think of "evade". A bit of etymological searching later, and I confirmed the connection. Inevitable is un-evade-able is unavoidable.
When you've moved the fourth time and you find out that the same unnecessary knickknack is still with you you can start to call it a posable thing. I mean it clearly was not disposable.
She said "term of phrase" at 19:26! Yall need to go back in time and put that in the eggcorn episode. I didn't even know that one existed! Now to rewind and listen to what she was actually saying when that happened...
Huh, I had to double check -- you're right! That was a slip of the tongue rather than ignorance of the idiom. Seems I need to do some vocal exercises before these pods. :) - JZ
Macula in ophthalmology comes from macula lutea, or yellow spot, the physical appearance of the portion of the retina that is used for fine central vision
Fascinating! I've been watching your videos for the past few hours, because I just couldn't stop after finding the most recent one. I actually knew some of Rob's videos about the German language. (I'm not a native English speaker, had some English lessons in school and by ways of the internet learned the language over the past 25 years or so)
But why am I commenting on a 2 months old podcast? Well I was totally surprised when Jess brought up the term "haddywyt", which was totally unknown to me before that. However, it sounded to me like the exact phrase I'd use to describe the concept of that expression. In the local dialect we would say: "Hätt' i' g'wißt.." (Hätte ich gewußt...) [Had I known...] to start expressing regrets for our actions. I could be totally wrong, but that word seems to resemble a contraction of that phrase (or a similar one), it is hard to imagine, that it's not related.
It certainly wouldn't be the only case of such a coincidence, but it was so surprisingly obvious to me, that I couldn't leave it unmentioned without later saying: "Haddywyst nobody else noticed, I would have pointed it out."
Jess is rapidly becoming my RUclips crush.
Not only is she both smart and beautiful… but that moment of absolute joy when “macchiato” came up… that totally got me.
@oliverstjohn2406 Yes, Jess is so cute, it's painful! ("in a good way", as Americans like to add)...
Just delightful.
Learnt so much. As a speaker of English as second language I always assumed Ruth means mercy and Ruthless is merciless.
Re 21:30, if unavoidable and inevitable are cognates and not just translations, then it seems likely that they do share roots with "evade" way back in PIE, because the "vade" in "evade", as Rob says, means to go, and the "void" root in "avoid" (it seems the full etymology of "evitare" is not known, hence relying on those being cognates) means to leave, and aside from going and leaving being very similar meanings, their PIE roots differ in only one letter, weh vs wehd, so with such similar words of such similar meanings I would really expect them to be related.
I have heard, and used, unwieldly to mean something awkward to handle or use, but not unwieldy.
I'm probably about to say something already known, but the 'gust' part of 'disgust', or at least the latin ancestor verb 'gusto' does find its way into English in 'gustation' and even in the Italian borrowing 'gusto' (as in 'to do something with gusto').
... a gust of wind
@@francespettigrew9646I always thought about that, something that is disgusting takes your gust (ie, wind, breath) away...
Love this new format from you guys. I also have to say, in no way detracting from her intellect and ability, that I find Jess’ smile totally captivating. I really enjoy watching you guys discuss back and forth. Lots more please!
Rob, you may want to look at macula degeneration again. It's not about the eyesight being spotty. Macula is a term in anatomy. It describes the spot at the center of the retina, where all the sensor cells are cones, good for color reception (as opposed to a mix of cones and rods in the rest of the retina). This spot has a slightly different color when looking at the eye background. It was therefore called the 'macula', the mark.
Macula degeneration refers to receptor cells in the center of your field of vision dying. The macula degenerates.
Unrelated: As you speak German: you may have come across "Makel", and "makellos".
The full name of the macula is macula lutea, yellow stain. According to the wikipedia article, the yellowness of the macula is not readily visible in a living eye because the red of blood overpowers it, but after death or surgical removal of an eye, the yellow color becomes visible.
I remember playing a golf video game a couple of decades ago and every time you messed up a shot, your opponent would come out with some sarcastic comment. The one that stuck with me was missing a short putt and being told "Nonchalant putts count the same as chalant putts."
"Innocent" in Québec French especially (in France French it sounds archaic but understandable) can be used to mean "not knowing the danger you're in" especially to a child who does something bad. "Innocence" the noun of this adjective in French is still used to mean naive, not knowing things, and ultimately: childish.
- Nonchalant is a participle of the old Verb "Chaloir" (to be worry or concerned with or by something) so nonchalant is someone who doesn't care by what surrounds him, someone not excited (not heated).
- Chalant (or chaland) has another meaning, it's a client or customer doing his shoppings in the same store. This word nowadays is used only in economy and retail business. It means literally "heated" clients attracted by the marchandise exposed in the store.
cool.
;-)
12:38 but innocent doesn’t mean “not knowing”, does it ? It has to be “not doing harm”, from Latin nocere (“nuire” in French). Just a hunch, but I’m pretty sure it’s solid
An enjoyable episode and one in which you both seem to have hit your stride - a lovely effervescence - with your ruths'less pursuit of lost orphans and your bold determination, the pair of you, to give no further feck.
- - -
Very off topic re: cumbersome swords.
A sword becomes cumbersome and, to use an ept example, unwieldy when its balance is off. A sword gets its balance from the blade's counterweight: the pommel. From short swords up to the mighty claymore (most often used as a two-hander), the balance point is 4 finger widths above the cross piece - Note: this pertains primarily to the Western tradition from the Vikings through to the mid-1500s, wherein 'sword' is a byword for that length of martial steel which has the cross piece down near, but not at, one end. Earlier pokie things like the Roman gladius utilised a very different fighting technique (and I can't help but think of the thousands of retired legionaries sitting about complaining bitterly about their 'tennis' elbows... shoulders... necks).
The asp that means rough could be related to rasp (a treewrights tool for roughing) perhaps?
On "gruntled": In southern Germany / Austria, somebody may be called "Grantler" (pronounced like "gruntler") who usually is rather disgruntled and tends to complain about everything.
I'd always understood that 'nocent' meant 'harmful' or 'causing harm' , and an online search has confirmed this. As far as I know, 'nocent', is related to 'noxious' (from Latin 'nocere', to harm) rather than Greek-derived words like 'gnosis' (''knowledge' or 'knowing').
Jess, I might be enjoying you as much as I enjoy Rob. Do you do any youtube on your own? Mind you, Jess & Rob together are the best. Thanks for a great collaboration.
Frank from Adelaide Australia
Brilliant episode! I thoroughly enjoyed watching you two "word nerds" - which is by no means meant as a disparaging term. 😁
Inevitably, we also had:
evitate (obsolete) To shun; to avoid.
23:30 There's also aspirate.
Macula is Latin for „spot“ - like a spot on a cloth. So maculate means something like spotted. The medical term refers to the macula densa, the spot in your eye, where the optic nerve enters the retina (the actual light sensitive „webby“ sheath in our eyes). So when you have a degradation of the optic nerve, you loose that spot along with your eyesight. Also interesting is the maculatur - an extra sheet of paper in between the pages of a handwritten book to soak up ink, that hasn’t dried up yet, so it becomes maculate but preserving the other pages of the book to become stained - it keeps them immaculate!
We have in Spanish the word 'mácula', rather formal, that means stain. And the verb 'macular' meaning obviously to stain, and also to smear, tarnish, sully (a reputation).
Something that doesn't exist in English but is kind of funny in other Germanic languages such as German, Danish and Swedish is maculate as a verb meaning to destroy, annul, cross out or smash into pulp. It's most common use in Swedish and Danish makulera/makulere is to annul an invoice for a cancelled order, by so to speak crossing it out by staining the document. Historically it could also be used for staining someone reputation by badmouthing them.
Another such word is "uproar". Presumably a sudden and unexpected silence would be a downroar.
There is no "roar" in "uproar". It's related to "rear" as in "rear up".
Nonroar?
I think the opposite of "nonroar" would have to be "roar".
I’m loving this podcast! I heard another orphan word: haught. As in, what someone who is haughty has a lot of.
high cockalorum
Hello, fellow language lovers! I absolutely adore your videos! BUT - Jess, Jess, Jess!! „for you and I“?! After teaching English for almost (a very long time), this is perhaps my pet peeve number 1! 😊 But not being innocent (in the naive sense - I am not guilty of this error), I fear I‘m on the losing side of this battle and apparently have been for centuries.
I knew someone who used the word irregardless in the same way I use regardless. I assume that this has crossed the Atlantic.
But it melts my brain with all the negatives added to regard or gard?
Loving these collaborations, very interesting and entertaining. Keep up the good work.
Aspersion is also part of the Mass. The priest walks down the aisle throwing holy water on everyone with something called an aspergillum. So "casting aspersion" really is negative, it is symbolically trying to bless or even re-baptise someone, to drive out a demon. The indication you need to do so implies they have fallen deeply into error. (Bless their hearts!).
The counterpart would actually be dispersion, no? Aspersion is what you do to the person, (you spread stuff toward them) but dispersion is what you do to the water in the process (you spread it around).