Please leave your own weird and wonderful words below! And remember that the first 500 people to use my link will receive a one month free trial of Skillshare: skl.sh/robwords12231
All time favorite find in the dictionary as a wee one: cuperoid - fossilized turd or scat Not sure of the spelling, I mean that was at least 65 yrs ago.
It's a relatively well-known word. but considering recent news about the Church Of England, we may for the first time ever, actually get to use in spontaneous conversation the word "antidisestablishmentarianism" without the subject of the conversation being about long words.
I mean Rob is a news presenter for DW and also works for the BBC besides being a RUclipsr. I don't think it too far-fetched that especially his work for the BBC helped him get into contact with Susie Dent.
As a service engineer for a German brand of domestic appliances, I often discuss the phenomenon described by 'vorführeffekt' with my customers. I'm thrilled to now have an appropriate word for it.
As someone who started his career as an electronics technician, when a device worked for us but not the customer, it was due to "technician's aura". We just had to be near enough. If the customer was rude, unpleasant, or simply clueless, then the problem was "Operator Head Space," meaning there is nothing in the region between the customer's ears.
I'm an ex service engineer and so wish that I had known this word during my decades on the road. I used to tell my customers that all equipment is fitted with an engineer proximity switch and that it behaves when this is activated.
@@richardward8578 I wrote my offering before having read your's, but it does remind me that we developed an ability to recognise various different types of customers, very early into the fault finding process. Some we were generous to, others we made suffer. Never upset the person you are hoping will cure your problems.
Well Rob, I am bursting with such confelicity at the sight of you being star struck with Ms. Dent :D :D (She is wonderful) On a different note, I was teaching clothes vocabulary to my ESL students recently, and realised that most countries used a variation of "pants" (As apposed to trousers), the french being pantalon, and the Spanish being pantalones etc. I researched the origin of the word trousers and to my surprise, I found it it originates from the Irish Gaelic language! Would it be an idea to do a video on Irish or Scottish terms that have suruved in the modern day English vocab? All the best! :)
Brilliant! I was thinking when gormless came up , the definition is old English gorm being care but in Irish it is the word for the colour blue, and we say we have the blues.
"Trusser" is the Danish word for panties/knickers, in particular, the high-waisted kind. Trousers/pants is "bukser". It is shortened from bukhosen, I guess lederhosen, because the "buk" is the animal that gave up its skin. Now, they are of any material. "Benklæder" is what you call something that partially or completely covers the legs (ben); pants, shorts, boxer-briefs. "Klæder" is the fancy/formal (plural) word for clothes or the fabric they are made from. And so, it shows up in advertising.
In German, we have the saying "Schuster, bleib bei deinen Leisten!" (= "Shoemaker, stick with your shoe lasts!" (shoe last = a shoemaker's tool)), which is used to tell someone off for criticizing or lecturing someone on a topic the critic doesn't really know about. Sometimes it is also used for people who make bad attempts at performing tasks they aren't trained for and they haven't been asked to do. Having now heard that story behind the "ultracrepidarian" word, I wonder whether that saying originates from the same story. I always wondered why the saying specifically singles out a shoemaker when it could really be any other craftsman, it's not like shoemakers had a particular reputation for overestimating themselves.
I seem to remember that Spanish has a very similar expression which translates as shoemaker to his shoes and means mind your own business. I remember it from a book so all the details may not be correct on this
I genuinely found an excuse to use the word thunderplump in a job interview. I work in education and was asked about how I see my role. I talked about finding joy in knowledge for its own sake, and love the fact that the word thunderplump exists.
LOVE these words! I've suffered from the Vorfuehreffekt many times, and been thunderplumped not a few, but I will respair, thanks to the contagious confelicity I get from this video. Good point also about a certain renaming freeing up a whole lot of lovely words - I'm all of a twitter!
I adore Susie Dent. She’s on a few British television shows that are also broadcast here in Australia. I think she has been a guest on No Such Thing as a Fish too.
It is interesting that this has been lost with the modern definition. Really, a bubber could just as well have been someone who emptied the pub's register then, right?
My favourite word is 'scumfish'. It means to overheat,overcrowd and suffocate. "I have to get out, I'm scumfished!" "The packed metro was scumfishing!" "The kids will scumfish in the car without air-conditioning,"... We did, with our legs sticking to the claggy, black vinyl seats. 'Claggy' is good word, too.
I am going to start using respair this spring. As someone who suffers from depression (SAD)is have needed a word to describe being in the upswing... I am no longer in despair, I do not yet qualify as "HAPPY" but I am in Respair. It is a perfect way to help people understand I am not "all good" but I am getting there. Just need to clean up some emotional residue before I am ready for joy.
I've been in love with Suzie since forever. Her passion for and love of languages has been nothing short of inspirational. The Sassenachs struck gold with her. I would absolutely love to confabulate with Suzie D. 😉
Confelicity is something I experience all of the time. It is great to know there is a word for my emotion. I do what I can to spread happiness. A lot of compliments are given and jokes are made.
About the Fohrführeffekt, that thing when your computer worked perfectly fine when you had brought it in for repairs. We had a British made piece of equipment at work a long time ago, and it acted funny. It had to do with bending tubes, for hydraulics. So we brought a technician over to Sweden, from Britain, to fix it. But as soon as he arrived, the equipment stopped acting funny. But he knew what this was, so he declared this needed "the sock solution"! He would leave one of his socks in the equipment, so it would feel his smell, and think the repairman was still around, and thus not act funny. And so he did, and it worked. And now I have that expression in my vocabulary, "the sock solution"! 🙂
Thunderplump is an interesting word for the English language. In Portuguese, at least in my Rio dialect from Brazil, if I were to describe a sudden storm that soaks you in seconds, I'd use the term "tromba d'água" or "water trunk", which is technically translated to "waterspout" and it's a specific meteorological event, but in informal speech it is about these sudden Summer rains where a lot of water pours down out of nowhere
Thank you for the great video! It is entertaining and very informative. As a native german speaker I was impressed by Susie Dent's pronounciation skills. I'd just like to add the information that 'Vorführeffekt' has a glottal stop between the two parts of the word. Vorführ...Effekt. Keep up the good work, cheers.
Slight addition: Vorführeffekt is usually used the opposite way by engineers. You worked a month on something (a product or a new software feature), and even though you tested it 100 times and it always worked stable, just during the big presentation, it won't work at all. "Tja, Vorführeffekt!", is what you will say to everybody in the understanding audience, and brush it off, without big embarrassment. I have never heard it in the opposite way as Susie Dent explained it, but that doesn't mean that it isn't used that way (being an engineer....)
In the US we all it "the Irish goodbye". My dad was 100% irish and said there are two irish goodbyes. One where you just dip out wordlessly, and one where you stand by the door hurredly talking for 3 hours with your coat on.
We call the second definition the Midwestern Goodbye here in the Midwest US. I'm sure the phenomenon occurs every where. We get the Irish Twins reference here: 2 kids born within a year.
Positively gobsmacked! As someone without any idea about British quiz shows, I never heard of the woman until your previous video; but she really is such a genius! Thanks, Rob! (And I finally found out that you're a presenter for DW when I caught you in one news vid!!)
I wonder if in a modern sense "bubber" could be expanded to refer to someone who steals towels from hotels, or even loads up on napkins and condiments from restaurants.
Your channel is simply a breath of fresh air 🥰 No one else understands my love of linguistics, and this video was among your best yet. Long-time fan, loved “confelicity” so much I had to call my sister and tell her about it so someone else knows it too 😂 Since it just rained outside, my contribution to underused words is “petrichor” 😇
English being a Germanic language, I constantly see similarities between English and German. Language, after all, is born of culture. This was a wonderful smattering of new words I think I should starting using. ❤️
And historically, as far as I understand, English is the result of the mixture of the French (or Frankish), Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian cultures, all of whom, at one time or another, fought over the island we now call Great Britain. Truly fascinating stuff. You still see it reflected in the language today. Compared to German, English has a hell of a lot more French loanwords, and words as fundamental as the pronouns themselves were shaped by Old Norse. English remains a Germanic language probably because the Anglo-Saxons eventually won most of the land on the island. Fun fact: During the very early days, the Angles and the Saxons were separate cultural groups that fought over what we now call England. The Angles won, which is why it's called Angle-Land -> Angland -> England today. Had the Saxons won, we might as well know that country as Sexland today, as we do with place names in England like Middlesex or Essex.
Dear Rob, One neat book is The Little Books of Lost Words by Joe Gillard (Ten Speed Press, 2019) Here are some of my favorites: Sonntagsleerung (German, noun, the low spirits or emptiness one feels on Sundays before the work work begins) early 20th century, medical. Apophenia: The tendency or experience of seeing patterns or connections between random, unrelated or meaningless data. Coined by a German psychiatrist, Klaus Conrad, in the mid-20th century. Desipience Foolish trifling, silliness, relaxed dallying in the enjoyment of foolish trifles. Adj. desipient mid-17th century Dolorifuge Something that vanishes or lessens grief or sorrow 19th century from dolor (grief/sorrow) from Middle English and Latin and fugare (Latin, to put to flight) Karoshi A loanword from the Japanese meaning death from overwork or job-related exhaustion. In Japanese, karo-shi literally means "overwork death." Came into use in the work-obsessed and consumerist 1980's.
Lalochezia Emotional relief gained by using indecent or vulgar language. How you feel after using curse words! 20th century origin Another word books I have and enjoy is Endangered Words: A Collection of Rare Gems for Book Lovers by Simon Hertnon (2009) maffick (verb, to celebrate in an rowdy, extravagant manner) prandicle (noun, 17th century, a small meal) slugabed (16th century, noun, one who sleeps in later than is appropriate)
Maffick I know: to celebrate a victory rowdily, derived from the history of the relief of the siege of Mafehking in the Boer war. Prandicle is obviously from a Latin prandiculum, a diminutive of prandium which means lunch probably invented as a joke by a former public schoolboy turned vicar.
In programming we have a term for a bug that when you observe it you cannot reproduce it; a Heisenbug, named after the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.
I hadn't heard of confelicity, but polyamorous people often use the word compersion to describe a similar concept, which is more taking joy in the joy that your partner experiences when with another of their partners.
As a small boy in South Yorkshire in the 60s and early 70s, it was common to hear someone talking about "snecking" the door, or putting the sneck on when you close the door fully, so the latch clicks into the hole in the door frame.
Loved the ultracrepidarian….. we have a saying in Milanese that express the very same concept but this is in a single, and Latinism nevertheless, word. Bravi! (Yeah, it’s the correct way to say “both of you”).
My friends & I were definitely bubbers in college, only we stole dinnerware from the cafeteria instead of an alehouse. Lol Respair is beautiful & I want it to make a comeback. And thunderplump is so fun & my favorite kind of rain. ❤️
There is actually a German word for confelicity: Mitfreude. It's very rarely used but pretty much just like confelicity, it literally translates to with-joy or with-happiness. There's also the far more commonly used and similarly constructed Mitleid (with-sorrow) which means pity.
I thought of that, because of ´Mitleid´, but wasn´t sure if ´Mitfreude´really exists. With regard to Mitleid: it is more than pity as it includes ´Leiden´therefore implies a more in depth feeling than just ´mitleidig´.
That word is very very rare, indeed, but we do express the sentiment with a little sentence like "ich freue mich für dich" which means "I'm happy for you." Or, when someone experiences suffering, "ich fühle mit dir," which literally translates to "I am feeling with you," but more accurately, "I feel for you."
Fremdschämen is often also used as an insult. It doesn't just mean that you're embarrassed for someone else along with the sentiment "thank god it wasn't me," but it also almost always carries with it a distinct note of "what a fool you are to embarrass yourself like that."
For example, someone might do a dance they think they are good at, but really everyone thinks they suck at it. You might tell that person that they are causing you to experience Fremdschämen as a way of telling them they suck. Many German words carry with them an air of judgment. That probably reflects a less pleasant part of our culture in a way. But hey, when something goes wrong and you're told that you're causing Fremdschämen, you can always blame it on the Vorführeffekt!
I love how you explain how you don't know the word "ultracrepidarian" and then immediately smash cut to you explaining the history of its usage in great detail.
One of my favourites is poodlefaker. I read it in an older book of words and their meanings and besides just liking the sound of it, the definition in this book was wonderfully specific, It said - a poodlefaker is a gentleman that prefers the company of ladies at ladies tea parties. I love it ❤
We used “tosspot” as an insult among my group of friends during high school in North Queensland. I haven’t heard it since then and was quite surprised it came up in this video. Now I know what it actually means!
Haha, we used it here in WA too, or maybe when I was living in Townsville for a few years back in the mid to late 80s? I can't be sure now. I wonder if tosser is a derivative of tosspot?
My wife is definitely a scurryfunger, especially when her mother is coming to visit, and then they followed it with ultracrepidarian and I thought “bugger it, that’s me!”
Please do keep this up, it is very entertaining. Thank god I have subscribben to this channel! Edit: Irish exit? Never heard of that one. What about taking French leave? I believe the French call it "filer à l'anglaise". Oh, and what's more: on a channel like this, the comments from viewers are equally entertaining and enlightening.
Please leave your own weird and wonderful words below! And remember that the first 500 people to use my link will receive a one month free trial of Skillshare: skl.sh/robwords12231
Fave words from Physics are Indistinguishabililty (English) & die Umklappprosessor (German)
Philobrutish seems to be pejorative
All time favorite find in the dictionary as a wee one:
cuperoid - fossilized turd or scat
Not sure of the spelling,
I mean that was at least 65 yrs ago.
It's a relatively well-known word. but considering recent news about the Church Of England, we may for the first time ever, actually get to use in spontaneous conversation the word "antidisestablishmentarianism" without the subject of the conversation being about long words.
Favourite German word:
ELFENBEINKÜSTE
It's their word for the country Côte d'Ivoire. "Elfenbein", or literally "Bone of Elves", is German for Ivory.
You know you're up a few levels when Susie Dent makes an appearance on your channel
Yes, but when is Rob going to show up in Dictionary Corner?
I mean Rob is a news presenter for DW and also works for the BBC besides being a RUclipsr. I don't think it too far-fetched that especially his work for the BBC helped him get into contact with Susie Dent.
Yeap
As an American I hadn't heard of Susie Dent until this Rob Words video.
@@michaelkelleypoetryshe’s an institution here in England.
a synonym for confelicity is compersion
As a service engineer for a German brand of domestic appliances, I often discuss the phenomenon described by 'vorführeffekt' with my customers. I'm thrilled to now have an appropriate word for it.
As someone who started his career as an electronics technician, when a device worked for us but not the customer, it was due to "technician's aura". We just had to be near enough. If the customer was rude, unpleasant, or simply clueless, then the problem was "Operator Head Space," meaning there is nothing in the region between the customer's ears.
I'm an ex service engineer and so wish that I had known this word during my decades on the road. I used to tell my customers that all equipment is fitted with an engineer proximity switch and that it behaves when this is activated.
@@richardward8578 I wrote my offering before having read your's, but it does remind me that we developed an ability to recognise various different types of customers, very early into the fault finding process. Some we were generous to, others we made suffer. Never upset the person you are hoping will cure your problems.
Yes I used to work in IT support and part of every day was assuring users that it happens all the time, shame I didn't know the word
Have you tried turning it off then on again?
♥ Susie Dent is so amazing. What a fantastic collaboration!
In computing, a similar thing to the Vorfuehreffekt is a Heisenbug -- a program bug that goes away when you're trying to investigate it.
I am very gruntled to see Susie.
I love how many of these words -- thunderplump and shotclog -- have the same echoing vowels in the syllables. Somehow it makes them more fun to say.
What a bunch of claptrap!
(Just kidding, of course.)
@@allendracabal0819 Hogwash! 🤣
😂 balderdash, I say!
Lol. Thunderplump, balderdash, hogwash, claptrap are all words I haven't heard for a long long time! Shall have to re-add them to my vocabulary.
More with Susie please! Magnificent combo!
Seconded
Well Rob, I am bursting with such confelicity at the sight of you being star struck with Ms. Dent :D :D (She is wonderful)
On a different note, I was teaching clothes vocabulary to my ESL students recently, and realised that most countries used a variation of "pants" (As apposed to trousers), the french being pantalon, and the Spanish being
pantalones etc.
I researched the origin of the word trousers and to my surprise, I found it it originates from the Irish Gaelic language!
Would it be an idea to do a video on Irish or Scottish terms that have suruved in the modern day English vocab?
All the best! :)
Brilliant! I was thinking when gormless came up , the definition is old English gorm being care but in Irish it is the word for the colour blue, and we say we have the blues.
"Trusser" is the Danish word for panties/knickers, in particular, the high-waisted kind.
Trousers/pants is "bukser". It is shortened from bukhosen, I guess lederhosen, because the "buk" is the animal that gave up its skin. Now, they are of any material.
"Benklæder" is what you call something that partially or completely covers the legs (ben); pants, shorts, boxer-briefs. "Klæder" is the fancy/formal (plural) word for clothes or the fabric they are made from. And so, it shows up in advertising.
@@Markle2kIn Swedish: trosor, byxor, kläder.🙂🇸🇪
I've never heard of scurry-funging, but I do a lot of panic-cleaning!
Cacafuego is what you get a few hours after eating something very spicy.
After eating a few bags of Takis Fuego, i got the cacafuego. 💥💥
In German, we have the saying "Schuster, bleib bei deinen Leisten!" (= "Shoemaker, stick with your shoe lasts!" (shoe last = a shoemaker's tool)), which is used to tell someone off for criticizing or lecturing someone on a topic the critic doesn't really know about. Sometimes it is also used for people who make bad attempts at performing tasks they aren't trained for and they haven't been asked to do. Having now heard that story behind the "ultracrepidarian" word, I wonder whether that saying originates from the same story. I always wondered why the saying specifically singles out a shoemaker when it could really be any other craftsman, it's not like shoemakers had a particular reputation for overestimating themselves.
Spanish has nearly the same expression: "¡Zapatero, a tus zapatos!" ("Shoemaker, [pay attention] to your shoes!")
In fact it does. It's based on the Latin saying "Ne sutor ultra crepidam!" Or "Ne supra crepidam sutor!" Which stems from that anecdote.
Yeah, I'm almost certain it's the same origin.
But the cobbler should stick to his last. I’ve known that expression since childhood.
I seem to remember that Spanish has a very similar expression which translates as shoemaker to his shoes and means mind your own business. I remember it from a book so all the details may not be correct on this
I genuinely found an excuse to use the word thunderplump in a job interview. I work in education and was asked about how I see my role. I talked about finding joy in knowledge for its own sake, and love the fact that the word thunderplump exists.
*role
(I am only correcting because it's a wordie channel.)
Still not the right time to do it.@@allendracabal0819
This is one of the best recordings. Being American and 76 I have been using Twitterpated since I was a little girl.
I associate Twitterpated with Bambi!
She's definitely somebody I'd love to meet. I'd loved to have studied language also.
Susie is great, so passionate and knowledgeable, but humble and extremely nice.
I'm a non-native speaker of English, but I study English by myself. I discovered your videos very recently and they do capture my attention.
I’m an American, but a huge Cats fan. Super stoked to see Susie on RobWords!
Loved this. Please, please do another with the amazing episode Susie Dent!
Confelicity is a lovely word!!
I am confelicitatious in your joy of having Susie on the show
The sheer joy on your face throughout is just a pleasure 😊
LOVE these words! I've suffered from the Vorfuehreffekt many times, and been thunderplumped not a few, but I will respair, thanks to the contagious confelicity I get from this video. Good point also about a certain renaming freeing up a whole lot of lovely words - I'm all of a twitter!
I adore Susie Dent. She’s on a few British television shows that are also broadcast here in Australia. I think she has been a guest on No Such Thing as a Fish too.
Susie is my hero, too!!
Thunderplump sounds like the bane of pilots trying to land an aircraft in rough weather, they call it a ‘microburst’.
Rob your absolute and unapologetic joy here is beautiful my friend! Word nerds unite 🎉
Congratulations! Susie Dent is brilliant!
As to "bubber", remember that "plate" in those days meant silver. Not just a flat piece of tableware, but actually silverware.
It is interesting that this has been lost with the modern definition. Really, a bubber could just as well have been someone who emptied the pub's register then, right?
Plates in an alehouse were more likely pewter.
So silverware. That makes more sense
I have lived in England, Canada and now Australia. Here are some words I have met along the way: collywobbles, drongo, wakkas, two four, gitch.
What a lovely person Susie Dent is.
My favourite word is 'scumfish'. It means to overheat,overcrowd and suffocate.
"I have to get out, I'm scumfished!"
"The packed metro was scumfishing!"
"The kids will scumfish in the car without air-conditioning,"... We did, with our legs sticking to the claggy, black vinyl seats.
'Claggy' is good word, too.
I am going to start using respair this spring. As someone who suffers from depression (SAD)is have needed a word to describe being in the upswing... I am no longer in despair, I do not yet qualify as "HAPPY" but I am in Respair. It is a perfect way to help people understand I am not "all good" but I am getting there. Just need to clean up some emotional residue before I am ready for joy.
I've been in love with Suzie since forever. Her passion for and love of languages has been nothing short of inspirational.
The Sassenachs struck gold with her.
I would absolutely love to confabulate with Suzie D. 😉
Getting Susie Dent is like snagging an interview with a president. Except much more interesting.
Biden struggles with basic words.
I personally like the usage of philobrutish to describe people who like mean or rude people
Great promotion! Just ordered Susie's book.
You won't regret it
Susie always makes me smile
Love Susie Dent! So glad you got to speak to her
"Respair" reminds me of "Eucatastrophe". 🥰
Confelicity, Respair... Absolutely wonderful words. Thank you for sharing.
Immediately noting these down for use in general conversation 😁. Great to see you and Susie in an episode together!
Loved confelicity and respair; need to find times to start using them.
Confelicity is something I experience all of the time. It is great to know there is a word for my emotion. I do what I can to spread happiness. A lot of compliments are given and jokes are made.
I agree but as one also experiences it a lot as part of the volunteer work I do, I've never thought of needing to give it a name.
Suzie really is extraordinarily knowledgeable. Love this video!
Susie Dent- what a legend! Love this channel.
About the Fohrführeffekt, that thing when your computer worked perfectly fine when you had brought it in for repairs. We had a British made piece of equipment at work a long time ago, and it acted funny. It had to do with bending tubes, for hydraulics. So we brought a technician over to Sweden, from Britain, to fix it. But as soon as he arrived, the equipment stopped acting funny. But he knew what this was, so he declared this needed "the sock solution"! He would leave one of his socks in the equipment, so it would feel his smell, and think the repairman was still around, and thus not act funny. And so he did, and it worked. And now I have that expression in my vocabulary, "the sock solution"! 🙂
My favorite pub related word, is "schapsidee"... of ideas that could only have come about down the pub! 🙂
Schnapsidee ;) Yes, it's a good word, I like it too!
Thunderplump is an interesting word for the English language. In Portuguese, at least in my Rio dialect from Brazil, if I were to describe a sudden storm that soaks you in seconds, I'd use the term "tromba d'água" or "water trunk", which is technically translated to "waterspout" and it's a specific meteorological event, but in informal speech it is about these sudden Summer rains where a lot of water pours down out of nowhere
And in Spanish we say “Palo de agua”…
In German we have "Wolkenbruch" for that. It literally means "the clouds break apart" and unleash all their water at once.
@@Tokru86There’s a similar expression in English - cloud bust. Roughly it means a sudden and heavy downpour.
We use the term Gully Wash here in the American South.
Gosh, Susie is really captivating, so good to see her up close. Great video, both. Thank you.
Love how @RobWords looks slightly besotted and bashful during the video chat with Susie 😍😍😍😍😍😍 - another great video!
Aren’t we all?
I'm a retired computer consultant. One of our standard phrases is "Works fine for me."
Listening to you two chat just makes me happy. Giddy with confelicity, you might say :)
Rob and Susie in the same video; my language loving heart is very content now😊
Thank you for the great video! It is entertaining and very informative. As a native german speaker I was impressed by Susie Dent's pronounciation skills. I'd just like to add the information that 'Vorführeffekt' has a glottal stop between the two parts of the word. Vorführ...Effekt. Keep up the good work, cheers.
I tried saying it without a global stop and it didn't work - I'm reading with subtitles not sound and I'm sure it would have jarred.
I really like the idea of words that sound like the complete opposite of what they mean. Great video!!
awesome to listen to two knowledgeable people talking about our language. Have Susie on again please!
Please make this a regular series.. you are both great and amazing together!
Thank you for having Susie Dent, and mentioning her book. Her book was a perfect gift for two of my friends.
It's always nice to see the lovely Susie.
Slight addition: Vorführeffekt is usually used the opposite way by engineers. You worked a month on something (a product or a new software feature), and even though you tested it 100 times and it always worked stable, just during the big presentation, it won't work at all. "Tja, Vorführeffekt!", is what you will say to everybody in the understanding audience, and brush it off, without big embarrassment. I have never heard it in the opposite way as Susie Dent explained it, but that doesn't mean that it isn't used that way (being an engineer....)
Just my favourite RUclips channel and so pleased to see the Empress of Eloquence here again. Brilliant!
In the US we all it "the Irish goodbye". My dad was 100% irish and said there are two irish goodbyes. One where you just dip out wordlessly, and one where you stand by the door hurredly talking for 3 hours with your coat on.
We call the second definition the Midwestern Goodbye here in the Midwest US. I'm sure the phenomenon occurs every where. We get the Irish Twins reference here: 2 kids born within a year.
😂 cracks me up 😂 I’ve been known to slip out quietly…didn’t know it was an Irish thing!
I literally yelled at my phone screen when I realised the video was about to end
Respair struck me as a wonderful word and s sorely needed activity in our time.
Positively gobsmacked! As someone without any idea about British quiz shows, I never heard of the woman until your previous video; but she really is such a genius! Thanks, Rob! (And I finally found out that you're a presenter for DW when I caught you in one news vid!!)
Brilliant stuff Rob. I was overcome with confelicity watching you chat with Susie.
"Confelicity" puts me in mind of the Pāli term "Muditā." It's usually translated as "sympathetic or vicarious joy."
I wonder if in a modern sense "bubber" could be expanded to refer to someone who steals towels from hotels, or even loads up on napkins and condiments from restaurants.
Susie Dent is just so lovely. Great video!
Your channel is simply a breath of fresh air 🥰 No one else understands my love of linguistics, and this video was among your best yet. Long-time fan, loved “confelicity” so much I had to call my sister and tell her about it so someone else knows it too 😂 Since it just rained outside, my contribution to underused words is “petrichor” 😇
Check out the podcast Something Rhymes with Purple with Susie D and Gyles Brandreth.
English being a Germanic language, I constantly see similarities between English and German. Language, after all, is born of culture.
This was a wonderful smattering of new words I think I should starting using. ❤️
And historically, as far as I understand, English is the result of the mixture of the French (or Frankish), Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian cultures, all of whom, at one time or another, fought over the island we now call Great Britain. Truly fascinating stuff. You still see it reflected in the language today. Compared to German, English has a hell of a lot more French loanwords, and words as fundamental as the pronouns themselves were shaped by Old Norse. English remains a Germanic language probably because the Anglo-Saxons eventually won most of the land on the island.
Fun fact: During the very early days, the Angles and the Saxons were separate cultural groups that fought over what we now call England. The Angles won, which is why it's called Angle-Land -> Angland -> England today. Had the Saxons won, we might as well know that country as Sexland today, as we do with place names in England like Middlesex or Essex.
Dear Rob, One neat book is The Little Books of Lost Words by Joe Gillard (Ten Speed Press, 2019)
Here are some of my favorites:
Sonntagsleerung (German, noun, the low spirits or emptiness one feels on Sundays before the work work begins) early 20th century, medical.
Apophenia: The tendency or experience of seeing patterns or connections between random, unrelated or meaningless data.
Coined by a German psychiatrist, Klaus Conrad, in the mid-20th century.
Desipience
Foolish trifling, silliness, relaxed dallying in the enjoyment of foolish trifles.
Adj. desipient
mid-17th century
Dolorifuge
Something that vanishes or lessens grief or sorrow
19th century
from dolor (grief/sorrow) from Middle English and Latin and fugare (Latin, to put to flight)
Karoshi
A loanword from the Japanese meaning death from overwork or job-related exhaustion. In Japanese, karo-shi literally means "overwork death."
Came into use in the work-obsessed and consumerist 1980's.
Lalochezia
Emotional relief gained by using indecent or vulgar language.
How you feel after using curse words!
20th century origin
Another word books I have and enjoy is Endangered Words: A Collection of Rare Gems for Book Lovers by Simon Hertnon (2009)
maffick (verb, to celebrate in an rowdy, extravagant manner)
prandicle (noun, 17th century, a small meal)
slugabed (16th century, noun, one who sleeps in later than is appropriate)
These are great! I've heard "slugabed" in use.
Maffick I know: to celebrate a victory rowdily, derived from the history of the relief of the siege of Mafehking in the Boer war. Prandicle is obviously from a Latin prandiculum, a diminutive of prandium which means lunch probably invented as a joke by a former public schoolboy turned vicar.
Super exciting-what a collab!!
Haven't even started watching yet, had to comment straight away!! 😀😀
Rob. Susie is a Hermione of yours. Period
In programming we have a term for a bug that when you observe it you cannot reproduce it; a Heisenbug, named after the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.
I hadn't heard of confelicity, but polyamorous people often use the word compersion to describe a similar concept, which is more taking joy in the joy that your partner experiences when with another of their partners.
As a small boy in South Yorkshire in the 60s and early 70s, it was common to hear someone talking about "snecking" the door, or putting the sneck on when you close the door fully, so the latch clicks into the hole in the door frame.
Great stuff! I don't see enough of these, but it's hard work, and I appreciate it!
Loved the ultracrepidarian….. we have a saying in Milanese that express the very same concept but this is in a single, and Latinism nevertheless, word. Bravi! (Yeah, it’s the correct way to say “both of you”).
My friends & I were definitely bubbers in college, only we stole dinnerware from the cafeteria instead of an alehouse. Lol
Respair is beautiful & I want it to make a comeback. And thunderplump is so fun & my favorite kind of rain. ❤️
I used to know someone who would go to a diner and make off with the salt and pepper shakers. Sheesh...
There is actually a German word for confelicity: Mitfreude. It's very rarely used but pretty much just like confelicity, it literally translates to with-joy or with-happiness. There's also the far more commonly used and similarly constructed Mitleid (with-sorrow) which means pity.
I thought of that, because of ´Mitleid´, but wasn´t sure if ´Mitfreude´really exists. With regard to Mitleid: it is more than pity as it includes ´Leiden´therefore implies a more in depth feeling than just ´mitleidig´.
There is not only 'Mitleid' that is similarly constructed but also 'Mitgefühl' (with-feeling) which means 'compassion'.
That word is very very rare, indeed, but we do express the sentiment with a little sentence like "ich freue mich für dich" which means "I'm happy for you." Or, when someone experiences suffering, "ich fühle mit dir," which literally translates to "I am feeling with you," but more accurately, "I feel for you."
@@gownerjones The verb "sich mitfreuen" is more often used.
@@TheRagnartheBold I've never heard anyone use that word in a sentence in my life.
Fremdschämen is often also used as an insult. It doesn't just mean that you're embarrassed for someone else along with the sentiment "thank god it wasn't me," but it also almost always carries with it a distinct note of "what a fool you are to embarrass yourself like that."
For example, someone might do a dance they think they are good at, but really everyone thinks they suck at it. You might tell that person that they are causing you to experience Fremdschämen as a way of telling them they suck. Many German words carry with them an air of judgment. That probably reflects a less pleasant part of our culture in a way. But hey, when something goes wrong and you're told that you're causing Fremdschämen, you can always blame it on the Vorführeffekt!
I love how you explain how you don't know the word "ultracrepidarian" and then immediately smash cut to you explaining the history of its usage in great detail.
Delightful video - and you could see how excited Rob was because he was grinning from ear to ear throughout 😂
One of my favourites is poodlefaker.
I read it in an older book of words and their meanings and besides just liking the sound of it, the definition in this book was wonderfully specific, It said -
a poodlefaker is a gentleman that prefers the company of ladies at ladies tea parties.
I love it ❤
We used “tosspot” as an insult among my group of friends during high school in North Queensland. I haven’t heard it since then and was quite surprised it came up in this video. Now I know what it actually means!
Haha, we used it here in WA too, or maybe when I was living in Townsville for a few years back in the mid to late 80s? I can't be sure now. I wonder if tosser is a derivative of tosspot?
One of our family's favorite words is kerfuffle.
That's a great one.
My mum has always turned 'thingumpybob' on its head to be 'bobumptything.'
LOVE the outtakes!! “Snotty RUclipsr” LOL!!!🤣🤣
I remember twitterpated an occasionally use it, and cannot wait to try the others!
My wife is definitely a scurryfunger, especially when her mother is coming to visit, and then they followed it with ultracrepidarian and I thought “bugger it, that’s me!”
I turn into a scurryfunger every time the annual fire alarm inspection rolls around. I don't want to cause anyone else to feel Fremdscham after all.
You two, are so cute together, bring us more!
The Swedish equivalent of fremdscham is "sekundärskam", meaning "secondary shame"..
I loved this SO much!! Thank you both! ❤
There were all great. I thoroughly enjoyed this video.
What a lovely video. Thoroughly enjoyed it!!!
your programme and all it involves is so good , makes me smile and improves my day
A great episode. Please sir can I have more Rob and Suzie collaboration
Confelicity reminds me of compersion , which is pretty similar, it often talked about as the opposite of jealousy, happiness for someone else
Please do keep this up, it is very entertaining. Thank god I have subscribben to this channel!
Edit: Irish exit? Never heard of that one. What about taking French leave? I believe the French call it "filer à l'anglaise".
Oh, and what's more: on a channel like this, the comments from viewers are equally entertaining and enlightening.
The word "subscribben" is not a real word but by god, I wish it were.