My mother was once stopped at US customs control for attempting to import meat into the USA. She had a hard time explaining to the official that mincemeat was actually fruit and she was taking a jar to my aunt for Christmas. If I ever have the same experience I will now be able to explain and probably confuse the poor old official even more, lol. Thanks Rob.
@@RobWords All the Scandinavian languages swe/da/no/is still have mat/mad/mat/matur meaning food. Swedish and Danish have flesh as fläsk/flæsk meaning pork. Meat is kött/kød/kjøtt/Kjöt of unknown Germanic origin, though it may be related to cut.
@@RobWords I used to think Christmas Mince Pies had meat also. Of course are Christmas Fruit Mince Pies. Don't think ever seen a meat mince pie at Christmas Lunch [or if I was in UK 'Christmas Dinner' (at lunchtime) ] Maybe we don't meat ones at Christmas since the small Four N Twenty (& many like it) are eaten all the time here in Aus, & at the footy (aussie rules) of course. Talking of sport, what about a vid of some of those words, such as soccer, fencing, golf, badminton, etc come from. Words that don't really match the visual like other sports. Though thinking about it, what's etymology of boxing, rugby, fencing
God loves you all! The Father sent the Son to die for you and your sins so that you could experience freedom to the fullest! Believe in Christ's death and resurrection (which sealed the work done on the cross) for your salvation and the forgiveness of sins! Amen! God loves you all! The Father sent the Son to die for you and your sins so that you could experience freedom to the fullest! Believe in Christ's death and resurrection (which sealed the work done on the cross) for your salvation and the forgiveness of sins! Amen!
Yes, indeed, 'mango' in English comes from 'māngā' in Malayalam (my mother tongue)! Robwords fan here, from Kerala, India. More power to the best etymology/word power channel on RUclips!!
Tamil and Malayalam both share same word and etymology - mā (prefix for anything relate to mango for example mā + maram meaning mango tree) and kāi meaning unripe fruit
Re milliner having its origins with reference to Milan, in Australia linen (bedsheets, pillowcases etc.) can still be referred to collectively as 'manchester' due to the old association with cotton goods being made in that part of Blighty. You still see department stores with a Manchester Department to this day.
When I went from NZ to work in Australia back in the 1990s I had never heard this term before (although I had been in Manchester). Imagine my dismay that it has crept in here. We didn't *need* a new term for bed-linen!
Similarly the paisley pattern is named after the town of Paisley in Scotland where they were producing cheap knock-offs of the Indian prints, known as "mango" after the fruit seed. (The traditional prints have either a symmetrical point or only slightly curled.)
@@richardokeefe7410 Manchester as a term for linen was around in NZ in the 1970s - I remember a shop in Dunedin having a manchester department when I was a kid.
I always thought a milliner exclusively made women's hats and fascinators. This could be media bias as the only time you see milliners on the news or telly is during the Spring Racing Carnival in Melbourne for me. Is it the same for other key racing events like Royal Ascot, The Golden Slipper, etc?
Changes in vocabulary, and indeed other aspects of language, don't become permanent in a flash. It takes years or even decades of common usage among its speakers to become part of the language. Not one person or institution can or should be the final arbiter of what's "right" or "wrong." That's why for me, as a descriptivist observer of language, I accept the current usage of "literally" for exaggeration or emphasis if it is clear in context.
@PBNkapamilya I wouldn't be so sure that it still takes decades these days. I think the internet is causing an overall global standard English to develop. So I bet you it's faster. Well, colloquially at least.
I love your channel.. I encourage you to continue doing your thing -- people clearly love it, and you're clearly talented at delivering information in palatable form. Keep up the good work! -AK in NYC
I do have to say Rob, that I wouldnt normally in interested in any of your content asa subject matter, but ive just about binge watched most of your videos and I find them a mixture of facinating, and humorous. Your dead pan delivery along with the informative content is spot on.
Meat still means food in Scots. When Dad turned the cows into a fresh field of grass, he'd say " There's plenty of meat there for the cows". When someone put too much sugar in my great-grandmother's tea she said it " was just bee's meat ! "
Norwegian "mat" for all food is the same root. Norwegian meat is "kjøtt" going back to a proto-germanic root "ketwą" from which a word "ket" used in some regions of England for "candy" is also derived.
Have to agree with tobias. Considering the Scandinavian influences on Scotland through the centuries, mat/mad from Danish, Swedish and Norwegian really seems most likelyas the influence here. The other one I still remember in Scottish is bairn, or child in Scandinavian languages, save finish
God loves you all! The Father sent the Son to die for you and your sins so that you could experience freedom to the fullest! Believe in Christ's death and resurrection (which sealed the work done on the cross) for your salvation and the forgiveness of sins! Amen! God loves you all! The Father sent the Son to die for you and your sins so that you could experience freedom to the fullest! Believe in Christ's death and resurrection (which sealed the work done on the cross) for your salvation and the forgiveness of sins! Amen!
The name Schneider is the German equivalent of Taylor, again referring to cutting. The concept leaves clothing for culinary endeavor as "snitzel" is the translation of " cutlet."
@@georgedunn320 In the southern US we have a kind of schnitzel that came from Germans in Texas. We call it "chicken fried" steak or "country fried steak". You pound the hell out of a tough cut of grass-fed beef, dip it in egg batter and spiced flour, and fry it fast. It's probably more like original German schnitzel 200 years ago than anything in Germany today. Except that we serve it with "cream gravy" we got from the French in Louisiana. And I assure you our cream gravy is more like actual béchamel from 200 years ago than any French béchamel sauce today.
'Grocery' is still the default word in the UK for what we buy at the supermarket/grocery store, even if we don't shop at the local grocer's shop so much these days. A gross (144) is a very useful quantity for bulk purchases. A carton usually contains 24 or 48 cans, hence six cartons of 24 is a gross.
In Australia we use the term "grocery shopping" when we go to the supermarket, and we do have some "green grocers" left. Both sell retail, not by the gross, although green grocers will sell by the carton and most also supply restaurants etc, so larger quantities.
Another great video Rob, thanks. Re: haberdasher. There are lots of cloths from the early Middle Ages that are named after the place they were made, typically these places were in the low countries area (e.g. cambric, denim, duffel, holland itself). Hapert is a place in the Netherlands - I wonder whether there was a specific type of cloths or garment made there. Something to ponder...
I really like how you use "bits and bobs" to describe what a haberdasher does, because I'm pretty sure that in a few centuries someone will be explaining what that means in the exact same way as you're explaining haberdasher right now. I find the idea of that very amusing.
I’d like to know if Rob has anything to say on the word “caddis”, because although it refers directly to the larva of a sedge-fly, it was also used of sellers who came round remote villages and farmsteads selling haberdashery. What do you think Rob?
The word for barber in Japanese is 床屋 _tokoya_ literal meaning "floor store". When the profession became widespread, they usually didn't have a permanent shop, instead they set up a simple floor in the streets and moved about. Thus they became known for the floor they set up.
It is an abbreviation of 髪結床 (kamiyuidoko) + 屋(ya 'store'). A person who works as a Japanese-style "barber" (髪結職 kamiyui-shoku) for men works at a 床店 (tokomise). Early examples of the profession are depicted in drawings from the mid-16th century, while the word "tokoya" only start to appear in early 19th century with this sense. The western sense of "barber" does not appear until the late 19th century.
@@gaoxiaen1 probably because the characters appeared in japan more than 1000 years ago, and then the meanings of the characters kind of drifted apart in both languages. It can mean both bed and floor in japanese but in chinese it just means bed
I believe that the word "retail" comes from someone cutting pieces of cloth from a roll for customers, while the word "wholesale" comes from someone selling complete rolls of cloth.
I think that may be incorrect. There are two uses of "retail" in Pride and Prejudice suggesting a more general meaning: re-trading or passing on something that you've acquired (rather than created). In the novel it refers to passing on information that you heard from someone rather than learning first-hand; it also implies gaining social status in the process. That concept is consistent with the modern meaning of retail: acquiring something from a wholesaler rather than creating it, then passing it on to someone else and gaining in the process. I guess in the cloth context, the wholesaler sells cloth to a retailer, who then cuts it into quantities appropriate for individual sale. So it's entirely likely those terms were used in the cloth industry, but they might have originated in a more general context. Here are the Pride and Prejudice uses, heavily abridged: Instance 1: In describing to her all the grandeur of Lady Catherine and her mansion... he was happily employed...; and he found in Mrs. Philips a very attentive listener, ... who was resolving to retail it all among her neighbours as soon as she could. Instance 2: Their party in the dining-room was large, for almost all the Lucases came to meet Maria and hear the news: and various were the subjects which occupied them; ... Mrs. Bennet was doubly engaged, on one hand collecting an account of the present fashions from Jane, who sat some way below her, and on the other, retailing them all to the younger Miss Lucases... Maybe RobWords can find out the origins of retail and wholesale and enlighten us! They would make an excellent complement to the Job Words series. :)
@@graceboucher2682 The OED has citations for "retail" going back to the 14th century, meaning to sell goods in relatively small quantity to the public (as distinct from wholesaling). This is straight from the Anglo-Norman retail/retaile/retaill/retaille/rettaille. The two uses you mention in _Pride and Prejudice_ are figurative uses that evolved later, in the late 1500s. The second instance has the meaning of recounting or retelling in great detail, or repeating to others. The first instance could be either the same thing, or parcelling out (the meaning is now obsolete).
I've never heard it pronounced like that. I think this is one of those words that has been adopted (incorrectly) and used so much in English that the original pronunciation has been totally lost (to us). It's usually a food item! Another example is 'chorizo'. Spanish pronunciation, I believe, is something like chuh'ritho. But it is almost always said as chuh'ritzo or, less commonly, chuh'rizo. At least we get the first syllable of it right!
@@oldnelson4298 words like tagliatelle and paella have begun to be pronounced by English speakers in their original way. People are being introduced to these recipes online
Was so grateful to the RUclips algorithm for recommending me your channel! Could you also make a video about Grimm’s law? It would be fascinating to hear you tell about it
Probably not from German. Double b is not so much ours. The translation Spottpreis is a further indication. Krats could be a cognate of kratzen (scratch).
@@aramisortsbottcher8201 Still, that would be a handful of words. Also in the North. F, V and W are candidates to be changed into B, but not very often as double B. We use more the double P instead.
I'm so glad you covered the term 'costermonger'. I knew a little about it, thanks to Gilbert and Sullivan, namely 'A Policeman's Lot' from 'Pirates of Penzance': When the coster's finished jumping on his mother, he loves to lie a-basking in the sun...' And then there's the song 'A Little Priest' from 'Sweeney Todd'. As Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett discuss the various types of pies, she insists that one 'has to be grocer; it's green'. If I recall correctly, by the 18th century, 'milliner' referred specifically to a maker of women's hats, men's hats being made by a hatter.
Groceries - at least where I lived in Scotland, we always called the weekly food shop groceries. The change was supermarkets selling non foods in the mid 80’s. If you add a pack of t-shirts and a pressure cooker into that basket, it’s no longer groceries. It’s ‘the’ shopping. Frozen food shops (or freezer markets as they were called also played a part) because groceries assumed a decent percentage of fresh food. Love your videos Rob. 10 minutes watching, 5 hours mulling it over 😂
In portuguese, the word for someone born in Brazil is "Brasileiro" wich uses the "-eiro" suffix, which is mostly used for professions. The correct suffix to use would've been "-iano", thus "Brasiliano" (similar to the english "Brazilian" and the french "Bresilien") The way in which it became a gentilic is because back in the day, "brasileiro" was a word used in Portugal to describe someone who traded brazilwood, the tree that gave its name to the country. In fact, the first emperor of Brazil, Pedro I, was nicknamed "O Brasileiro" by the Portuguese Cortes because of his affinity to the country.
I found your channel last week and, having watched all of your videos, I can say that you're one of my favourite content creators and educators on this platform. Side note--I'm autistic and love learning about etymology (it's one of my "special interests," but I find that term diluted and boring), so watching and rewatching your videos (sometimes for hours) is tremendously fulfilling. Thank you very much for making these.
There is a rare Japanese family name called 筋師 _Sujishi_ literal meaning "muscle master". Apparently its an old word for people who butchered whales, as you needed to be really strong to do that.
There is a fiction author named Terry Pratchett and in his fictional books he made up the family name Strong-in-the-arm which meant a Smith or metal worker. In Scotland (not fiction) there exists the family name Armstrong because a knight on horse reached down and picked up his armored King and put him back on his horse after the king fell.
Great video as usual. Ethimology is a field of study that is practically never-ending, in the sense that there is always more things to learn. This because, as I learn some more of a new language, there are hundreds of ethimology connections to be made between English and the other languages. Thank you Rob, your linguistic videos are the best on RUclips. Greetings, Anthony
The segues into each of the topics in this video were so smooth they sounded very QI-esque. I can imagine them coming out of Stephen or Sandi as they're reading from the teleprompter.
I love this channel! Swedish "mat" (meaning food) is pretty similar to English "meat". Swedish "fläskkött" (pork meat) is very close to Flesh meat. Swedish "mat och dryck" is the same as "meat and drink". Swedish "grossist" very similar to "groser" and meaning wholesaler/bulksaler.
Rob - the ancient Livery Companies of the City of London have some interesting job titles - ie being guilds of trades, crafts and merchants. The Weavers Company is the oldest recorded. Company of Grocers and of Butchers, but hat makers are the Company of Feltmakers. The Pattenmakers made the wooden undershoe to protect your silk shoe. Cordwainers made shoes of Cordova leather. Loriners are the makers of horse bits - a lorin - and the makers of leather belts are the Company of Girdlers, girdles. There is a Lightmongers company, but it is modern and involved with illumination, older references are to dealers in offal - ie 'lights'.
sadly, sadly you missed the famous quote in Asterix in Britain.... "My tailor is rich!" Which was taken from a French schoolbook for English from the 60s, where this was one of the very first , and still sooo usable sentences... 😂🤣😂
@@kellydalstok8900 A famously useless one from an old English to French phrasebook, supposedly at least, was: "The postillion has been struck by lightning".
Hey, I've been binge-watching your entire channel out of order and I thought I'd pop a suggestion in the comments to the most recent video to increase the chances of getting noticed. What about a video about the English (and beyond) words for family members? A lot of them will just go back to Proto-Indo-European, but it's an opportunity to explore why English has the concept of in-laws, i.e. sticking "in-law" onto existing family words to get new ones, while other languages have specific words for those same relations. It might also be worth mentioning that some languages are more specific than others when it comes to describing family ties, such as how the word "nipote" in Italian can mean a grandchild of either gender, but also a nephew or niece, while Latin, to my knowledge, was precise enough to have two separate sets of words for aunts and uncles on your mother or your father's side. AND it's a chance to take a little detour to Iceland for a look at their surnames! Hope you'll take this into consideration. Keep up the good work!
In Swedish we have the word Grossist, that's a word for what in English you would call a wholesaler. Even though your videos mostly are about the English language, I still go oh I didn't know that about the Swedish language. Swedish is my native language. 😊
Yeah, most European languages are very much intertwined. It's too bad we all had to go our own way and can't even talk to each other anymore. But every new generation of people find their peers and conspire to make the world their own.
Scandinavian languages still use a cognate of "meat" for food in general. For example the Norwegian word for food is "mat". In modern German there is the much more specific cognate "Mett". It refers to chopped/minced/ground pork which is also referred to as "Hackepeter" (something like "chopped Peter") in some regions. It is eaten raw as a spread on bread or buns, usually topped with onions and sometimes garnished with pickles. Mett is also called "Maurermarmelade" (brick layer's jam) sometimes, as it is considered a favorite dish among hard working, down to earth people.
@@uingaeoc3905 Yes. English is a Germanic language. The word "English" refers to the Angles, a people from the area around the modern Danish-German border; the Saxons (as in "Anglo-Saxon") were from the area between there and what is today the Netherlands.
@@beeble2003 What sort of half wit are you to think someone whose user Name is in Anglo-Saxon script does not know this??!"! NO - English is a language with the same roots as the Germanic languages. It is NOT 'German' any more than German is 'English'. DIKC #6@D
George Mikes in his classic examination of the English "How to be an Alien" did this joke. "Fishmongers mong fish. Exactly the same as ironmongers and warmongers with iron and war. They just mong them."
I first encountered “monger” in Hamlet, and I believe that at least part the reason that “monger” has become pejorative is the association of the suffix with Polonius.
I grew up with a mother who loved words and word play, as do I. So we often investigated either the origins, or the earlier meanings of words. To my understanding, then, a haberdasher was a maker/seller of men's hats, while a milliner was a maker/seller of women's hats. The tailor and dressmaker handled the rest of the garments: mens' and womens', respectively. ;-)
I've always loved the term groceteria. The term is unnecessarily convoluted. It seems to have faded in Canada post-WWII, and I assume it is due to the rise of supermarkets.
Interesting. I thought a groceteria was a small store that sold both groceries and prepared food like sandwiches and hot drinks, a combination of grocery and cafeteria. I haven't seen one labelled as such for a pretty long time. Of course, supermarkets do that now, and often convenience stores, too.
♥️ your content! Thanks for this and all you’ve taught us across your videos. FYI- the “G” in tagliatelle is silent. Or rather “GL” in Italian is pronounced as “LY” in English
Hi Rob, great video, as usual. Please note that the group “gli” in “tagliatelle” is pronounced as IPA [ʎ], not [gl]. There are a few exceptions to this rule, like the word “glìcine” where it’s pronounced [gl] . Ciao!
Very interesting video as usual! In French, “grossier" used to mean someone who sell food in big quantity but now it rather qualifies someone with poor manners. “Grossiste” is the modern term for a wholesaler.
"Excellent well, you're a fishmonger!" As for "meat" meaning any kind of food, Norwegian can probably explain that (the Norwegian word for food is "mat")
Also the origin of 'mate', as in comrade or (now) friend: late Middle English: from Middle Low German māt(e ) ‘comrade’, of West Germanic origin; related to meat (the underlying concept being that of eating together).
I have been enjoying your video Mr Rob. I really love knowing etymology of this words, It feels like giving the words that we already familiar with a new life. Thanks for the knowledge.
In Iceland we still call vegetables “green meat” or grænmeti which literally translates to green foods. The -meti part is an archaic version of mat, the Icelandic word for food and is related to the English word meat
Another fantastic episode. Like I said before, I could watch a whole channel of _just_ job words. They tell us so much. Also, now I know I've been understanding haberdasher wrong. Having really mostly encountered it in written work set during the period that it meant "hat maker", I assumed it still meant that. Interesting to see that it both changed and diverged.
My grandma was a seamstress, so haberdashery to me has always meant the buttons, zips, ribbons, threads, hooks and eyes, Velcro, lace trim, etc that you need to complete garments. In Australia the large fabric shops all have a haberdashery department, which is often now shortened to "haby".
@@fionaanderson5796 Oddly enough, my mom was a seamstress for a good number of years (then a waitress, then a nurse). But that didn't help me much in North America, given which way we went on the definition fork.
Milliner... a very similar history to the Australian definition of a department where you buy bed linen... They call this Manchester, as back in the day Manchester in the UK was the leading supplier of these items, so crates marked Manchester went to Australia, and so now they have, in major department stores a department called... Manchester
When I was a kid, the first time I heard someone refer to “millinery” I thought they were saying “military”. Hearing you explain the origin of millinery coming from Milan made me wonder if there’s any ancient military connection to Milan. The answer to that as far as I can tell is no, not particularly. But this sent me down a rabbit hole. I started wondering how Milan got its name, and now I am about 17 links deep in a Wikipedia chain learning about Celtic Insubres. I had no idea until now that Celtic referred to anything outside Ireland. This also sent me down a path learning about Gauls and Gaels, and honestly I’m so deep in all these tabs I’m getting a bit lost! Anyway, I guess what I’m saying is if you ever wanted to make a video about like….really really old European languages, and their movement through history, I’m fascinated but don’t even know where to start asking questions. Not sure if that’s in the scope of this channel, but just thought I’d share and see if it sparks anything.
I was presented with a map of Milan in which every house is labeled with the resident's name. As it was a semi-precious gift, I have framed and hung it on my drawing room.
The Celts now live in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Manx, Brittany, and many of the islands. At one stage they inhabited most of Britain and northern France, but they were pushed to the edges of the world by later waves of immigrants. From memory they originated in eastern Europe. (Eastern Europe must have been crowded. It seems like every group to ever inhabit western Europe came from there.) And just to make it weird, apparently the word Celt comes from the Greek word keltoi, hence the hard k sound at the start.
@@fionaanderson5796 Thank you Fiona. It's often overlooked that the Welsh are Celtic, though Brythonic rather than Goedelic, from whom the Irish and Scots are descended. That Brythonic Celts inhabited most of what is now Great Britain can be seen in some Scottish place names such as "Aberdeen" ("aber" being the mouth of a river) and "Ben Nevis ("Pen, mutated to "Ben" means the top of a mountain). You are right about the hard "C" sound in "Celtic", and in Welsh all "Cs" are hard. We have no letter "K". The soft "C" sound is replaced by "s" in Welsh.
Hi Rob, I just wanted to let you know that these videos of yours are top notch. You are clearly a man of vast knowledge in language. I learn a lot of interesting stuff from you and show my family some of your vids. So thank you and have a wonderful day! 👍😉
When preceding an "l" in Italian, the "g" moves the middle of the tongue of the "l" sound to the the middle of your hard palate instead of at your teeth. The "g" is not pronounced and the "l" is tongued from the middle of the hard palate. Love your stuff!
I've only just noticed that although I know grocer and grocery are pronounced with an "s" sound, I actually pronounce it groshery and grosher. I think it's a regional dialect thing because my whole family says the word this way.
Lemme guess-Gileadites? 😜 Of course, pronouncing 's' as 'sh' ( /s/ → /ʃ/ ) is quite common around the world. Bengalis in India do that all the time. Throws you off-guard the first time you hear "Take a seat." 🤣 Germans also do that in words starting with 'st' and 'sp'. Strudel, Spaghetti, ... Naturally, the opposite-pronouncing 'sh' as 's' ( /ʃ/ → /s/ ) also happens. The most famous legend being, of course, what I alluded to earlier: The Ephraimites-counterparts to the Gileadites-who pronounced 'shibboleth' as 'sibboleth'. But even in modern times, I know of some regional dialects of Hindi (in India) where the same thing happens. Examples: • The Hindi word for 'noise' is pronounced as _shore_ in Standard Hindi, but as _sore_ in certain regional dialects. • The Hindi word for 'city' is pronounced as _sheher_ in Standard Hindi, but as _seher_ in certain regional dialects.
It's so interesting the way words evolve. In portuguese we have: Grocista - the shop where you can buy in bulk Talho - butcher (shop) Talhante - the person who cuts/sells meat Entalhe - sculpted wood
"mat" means "food" in the scandinavian languages. In French also, the old word "carn, car, char, chair", meaning "flesh" and "meat" was replaced by "viande", from Latin "vivenda", from "vivere" = to live. We also say "des vivres" for "supplies, provision" (to eat).
Mature coming from ripening foods / mats ? In dutch we have the term maatje (a mate or buddy in english) for a 'salted herring' but in german they say 'matjes'. It are litterally ripened or fermented raw fishes whereby only salt is used for the maturing proces.
@@b.a.erlebacher1139 According to my dictionary, "mets" comes from the Latin "missum" = sent (on the table). The "t" is not etymological, and seems never to have been pronounced. It was added by scholars just to complicate the spelling, probably by attraction of the verb "mettre" = to put.
@@Frilouz79 Thanks! Which makes me wonder whether "mess", the military term for place to eat, comes from French by the same derivation. It was once used for a serving of prepared food in English, as in the King James bible, where Esau eats "a mess of pottage", pottage of course from "potage". Etymology can really send you down a rabbit hole...
@@b.a.erlebacher1139 medieval cook books sometimes use the term "mess it forth" although "serve it forth" is more common. A recipe will occasionally tell you "for X messes" - ten serves.
8:20 Millenia from now, future anthropologists will wonder, completely baffled, at the mysterious meaning of “misc.” (miscellaneous) and what specifically it was.
I took a shot at summarizing: Monger Comes from the classical latin Mangō meaning a trader Old English changed it to Manger (pronounced monger) or Magnere, Mongere, Mongar etc. Grocer Post-classical latin had Grossarius meaning someone who sold in large quantities Changed into the French Grossier before changing into the English Grocer Tailor Comes from the medieval Latin word Tailiare meaning to cut Changed to the old French word Tailleor meaning someone who cuts. Haberdasher Comes from Aglo-norman as someone who sells Hapertas. Hapertas exact definition is unknown but may have meant a type of fabric, or assorted small items. Milliner Comes from renaissance Italy Milan, where merchants selling garments were called Milliners. Changed from garments in general to hats. Weaver Comes from the indo-germanic word Webh meaning web.
My children always teased me with, “Mom, words are your life.” I always insisted on proper usage (avoiding “ruined” words). You,Rob, have really made words your life! I applaud you, sir.
I love hearing happy people in the background! Sets a nice mood. It's way better than some of the annoying and distracting music some videos have. Love these videos!
Diary products = white meat - in Polish diary products (and eggs too) are collectively called "nabiał", and the root word here is an adjective "biały" (masc., "biała" for feminine gender, "białe" for neuter one). Also, that "gross" = "bulk" or "wholesale" (in German "Großhandel) is a source for Polish "cent", i.e. "grosz" (pron. grosh). Obviously, it's current status and value has diverted quite a lot from its medieval (I believe) meaning - which was "a big/ thick coin" (i.e. valuable one). EDIT: Fun fact - in Polish eggs are called "jaja" (yaya)... Wait. "Jajko (yayko) is a PROPER singular nominative (jajka for plural, neuter gender), but the common/ colloquial word is "jaja" (plural; "jajo" for singular - probably harking back to Old Polish jajca/ jajco, or even older "wajca/ wajco" - still existing in Czech, "vajca" AFAIR - and keep in mind that Polish "w" is pronounced as "v" -but I digress here). Anyway, that "jajca" is also a synonym - or euphemism - for what English speaking folks refer to as "balls" - like in "you gotta have balls to do it". Seems to me that both the shape and fragility, so to speak, of the organ in question are better served by that "eggs" euphemism than "balls", but I digress again. Anyway, the problem with euphemisms is such, that after "some time" they become THE word for THE thing, and they kinda cease to be euphemisms... so a new euphemism for "former, now defunct" one has to be invented, and this is where the "nabiał" makes its comeback. Namely, if someone wants to refer to "those things" in a polite manner, he (or she) uses the word "nabiał" instead of "jaja".
I like the idea of filming on-location in public, but the background noise was pretty loud/distracting at parts. Might need a better noise-isolating microphone if you want to do it again.
I’m sure this comes as no surprise, but Dutch and German both have the same meaning in their words for Tailor. Snijder and Schneider both literally mean “one who cuts.”
@@aramisortsbottcher8201 'Kleermaker' is the common word for a tailor in Dutch. 'Snijder' does indeed sound extremely old fashioned (as in I've never heard anyone use it in this context).
@@aramisortsbottcher8201 in Belgien benutzt mann es öfter aber in Niederländisch "Kleermaker" The word is mostly used in Belgium, in the Netherlands the word "kleermaker" is more common.
To weave in spanish is tejer, tejer is related to textile (woven fabrics), text (as in weaving a story), and technology (as in the craft and tools used to weave). I am truly fascinated by this etymology. Like weaving has been around since we spoke indo-european.
“So off to the haberdasher she did go, As fast as she could ru-u-un. She bought him a pair, The best that was there, And the soldier put them on.” 🎼🎶🎵 great song :) 😋🌷🌱
I feel compelled to point out that mincemeat pies traditionally did contain meat, in the flesh meat sense. The tendency to leave the meat out is a product of the early 20th century, though some people - my old Yankee grandmother, for example - still make theirs with meat. The aforementioned grandmother always made her with venison.
I read down the comments to see if someone had mentioned this. Many recipes for mincemeat still call for beef suet although commercial ones tend to be vegetarian these days.
We had haberdashery shops or sections in department stores. They sold bits and bobs related to making things. So: pins and needles, buttons, scissors, tape measures, thread, wool, lace and other bric-a-brac . Some would even carry a small selection of cloth.
Monger is one of my favourite words to say because I often say it after I've been the the fish monger! (I live in a coastal town in Australia so the seafood is great!). I'm hanging out for Nov 16 when lobster season opens again!
I totally would have watched this if it were not for the background noise. But I'm sure it was a lovely video that many people enjoyed. I may try it again sometime with the volume off.
In Shetland dialect "maet" is still sometimes used to refer to food generally, and meat is sometimes still referred to as flesh... (I say this as a non native resident who studies the local dialect informally)
Man! I don't know English well, but i always watch yours videos and gather plenty of new information. About language which i really don't know. And i have fun! Thank You for your work :)
My mother was once stopped at US customs control for attempting to import meat into the USA. She had a hard time explaining to the official that mincemeat was actually fruit and she was taking a jar to my aunt for Christmas. If I ever have the same experience I will now be able to explain and probably confuse the poor old official even more, lol. Thanks Rob.
In India, we consume sweetmeats by the tons; of course they have no flesh in them
Love this!
@@RobWords All the Scandinavian languages swe/da/no/is still have mat/mad/mat/matur meaning food.
Swedish and Danish have flesh as fläsk/flæsk meaning pork. Meat is kött/kød/kjøtt/Kjöt of unknown Germanic origin, though it may be related to cut.
@@RobWords I used to think Christmas Mince Pies had meat also.
Of course are Christmas Fruit Mince Pies. Don't think ever seen a meat mince pie at Christmas Lunch [or if I was in UK 'Christmas Dinner' (at lunchtime) ]
Maybe we don't meat ones at Christmas since the small Four N Twenty (& many like it) are eaten all the time here in Aus, & at the footy (aussie rules) of course.
Talking of sport, what about a vid of some of those words, such as soccer, fencing, golf, badminton, etc come from. Words that don't really match the visual like other sports.
Though thinking about it, what's etymology of boxing, rugby, fencing
Bringing certain fruits from another country is also illegal.
In German a tailor is Schneider, a cutter. The verb schneiden, to cut, survives in English as snide, as in making a snide or cutting comment.
I just was about making the same comment. 😘
@@gertrudedierude7224 Neat. Schneiden also survives as the element snod- as in the family name Snodgrass = Cut Grass.
And when the MacGregor name was banned twice in Scottish history, my ancestors created a new surname- Sneddon, which means “hedge cutters”
@@4Grace4Truth Interesting. I wonder if that is Scots English. A lot of Middle English words survive in Scots English.
God loves you all! The Father sent the Son to die for you and your sins so that you could experience freedom to the fullest! Believe in Christ's death and resurrection (which sealed the work done on the cross) for your salvation and the forgiveness of sins! Amen! God loves you all! The Father sent the Son to die for you and your sins so that you could experience freedom to the fullest! Believe in Christ's death and resurrection (which sealed the work done on the cross) for your salvation and the forgiveness of sins! Amen!
My mother, the daughter of a Fletcher, remarried a Bowman (my stepfather). I always found that ironic and rather amusing.
Do they listen to the music of Arrowsmith?
Yes, indeed, 'mango' in English comes from 'māngā' in Malayalam (my mother tongue)!
Robwords fan here, from Kerala, India. More power to the best etymology/word power channel on RUclips!!
❤️ Robwords is the BEST 🇩🇪
No it comes from the Tamil word for Mango also Mangai
@@TerrAqua Māngai in Tamizh -- Māngā in Malayalam -- same word...
It's still mangga in Indonesia ❤
Tamil and Malayalam both share same word and etymology - mā
(prefix for anything relate to mango for example mā + maram meaning mango tree) and kāi meaning unripe fruit
Re milliner having its origins with reference to Milan, in Australia linen (bedsheets, pillowcases etc.) can still be referred to collectively as 'manchester' due to the old association with cotton goods being made in that part of Blighty. You still see department stores with a Manchester Department to this day.
When I went from NZ to work in Australia back in the 1990s I had never heard this term before (although I had been in Manchester). Imagine my dismay that it has crept in here. We didn't *need* a new term for bed-linen!
Similarly the paisley pattern is named after the town of Paisley in Scotland where they were producing cheap knock-offs of the Indian prints, known as "mango" after the fruit seed. (The traditional prints have either a symmetrical point or only slightly curled.)
@@richardokeefe7410 Manchester as a term for linen was around in NZ in the 1970s - I remember a shop in Dunedin having a manchester department when I was a kid.
That's funny, in Sweden manchester means corduroy, obviously related to the once booming garment industry of the town with the same name.
I always thought a milliner exclusively made women's hats and fascinators. This could be media bias as the only time you see milliners on the news or telly is during the Spring Racing Carnival in Melbourne for me. Is it the same for other key racing events like Royal Ascot, The Golden Slipper, etc?
I have this internal dichotomy - "I hate it that they alter words these days" v "How fascinating how words have changed"
I've come to grips with this phenomenon, but it's still really hard to accept lots of the grammatical changes that have been going on
Changes in vocabulary, and indeed other aspects of language, don't become permanent in a flash. It takes years or even decades of common usage among its speakers to become part of the language. Not one person or institution can or should be the final arbiter of what's "right" or "wrong."
That's why for me, as a descriptivist observer of language, I accept the current usage of "literally" for exaggeration or emphasis if it is clear in context.
@PBNkapamilya I wouldn't be so sure that it still takes decades these days. I think the internet is causing an overall global standard English to develop. So I bet you it's faster. Well, colloquially at least.
For me its like "i hate when they alter words these days UNLESS... it happens to suit my sensibilities or is fun to say and then its totally fine" 😅
I love your channel.. I encourage you to continue doing your thing -- people clearly love it, and you're clearly talented at delivering information in palatable form. Keep up the good work!
-AK in NYC
Push
Thank you very much!
I do have to say Rob, that I wouldnt normally in interested in any of your content asa subject matter, but ive just about binge watched most of your videos and I find them a mixture of facinating, and humorous. Your dead pan delivery along with the informative content is spot on.
Meat still means food in Scots. When Dad turned the cows into a fresh field of grass, he'd say " There's plenty of meat there for the cows". When someone put too much sugar in my great-grandmother's tea she said it " was just bee's meat ! "
Norwegian "mat" for all food is the same root. Norwegian meat is "kjøtt" going back to a proto-germanic root "ketwą" from which a word "ket" used in some regions of England for "candy" is also derived.
Have to agree with tobias. Considering the Scandinavian influences on Scotland through the centuries, mat/mad from Danish, Swedish and Norwegian really seems most likelyas the influence here. The other one I still remember in Scottish is bairn, or child in Scandinavian languages, save finish
"How can you have any puddin' if you don eat yer meat?" (Pink Floyd, Another Brick In The Wall)
God loves you all! The Father sent the Son to die for you and your sins so that you could experience freedom to the fullest! Believe in Christ's death and resurrection (which sealed the work done on the cross) for your salvation and the forgiveness of sins! Amen! God loves you all! The Father sent the Son to die for you and your sins so that you could experience freedom to the fullest! Believe in Christ's death and resurrection (which sealed the work done on the cross) for your salvation and the forgiveness of sins! Amen!
As per Burns' grace, "Some hae meat and canna eat..."
There's an old phrase 'as full of meat as an egg', which made perfect sense when 'meat' was a word for food in general.
i learned that to.
There's another word for a tailor, "sempster" with its female equivalent "sempstress" or "seamstress".
The name Schneider is the German equivalent of Taylor, again referring to cutting. The concept leaves clothing for culinary endeavor as "snitzel" is the translation of " cutlet."
Not to mention, of course, "spinster", whose meaning expanded to refer to marital status rather than a specific occupation.
@@georgedunn320 schnitzel- now THERE'S a good word
@@georgedunn320 In the southern US we have a kind of schnitzel that came from Germans in Texas. We call it "chicken fried" steak or "country fried steak". You pound the hell out of a tough cut of grass-fed beef, dip it in egg batter and spiced flour, and fry it fast. It's probably more like original German schnitzel 200 years ago than anything in Germany today. Except that we serve it with "cream gravy" we got from the French in Louisiana. And I assure you our cream gravy is more like actual béchamel from 200 years ago than any French béchamel sauce today.
'Grocery' is still the default word in the UK for what we buy at the supermarket/grocery store, even if we don't shop at the local grocer's shop so much these days.
A gross (144) is a very useful quantity for bulk purchases. A carton usually contains 24 or 48 cans, hence six cartons of 24 is a gross.
In Australia we use the term "grocery shopping" when we go to the supermarket, and we do have some "green grocers" left. Both sell retail, not by the gross, although green grocers will sell by the carton and most also supply restaurants etc, so larger quantities.
Another great video Rob, thanks. Re: haberdasher. There are lots of cloths from the early Middle Ages that are named after the place they were made, typically these places were in the low countries area (e.g. cambric, denim, duffel, holland itself). Hapert is a place in the Netherlands - I wonder whether there was a specific type of cloths or garment made there. Something to ponder...
I really like how you use "bits and bobs" to describe what a haberdasher does, because I'm pretty sure that in a few centuries someone will be explaining what that means in the exact same way as you're explaining haberdasher right now. I find the idea of that very amusing.
I’d like to know if Rob has anything to say on the word “caddis”, because although it refers directly to the larva of a sedge-fly, it was also used of sellers who came round remote villages and farmsteads selling haberdashery. What do you think Rob?
As an American, I had to infer his meaning. "Bits and bobs" is not a common phrase here, even in 2022!
@@caoimhin7122 The closest thing we have is the word "sundry".
I take it it's derived from old money (pre-decimalisation)?
The word for barber in Japanese is 床屋 _tokoya_ literal meaning "floor store". When the profession became widespread, they usually didn't have a permanent shop, instead they set up a simple floor in the streets and moved about. Thus they became known for the floor they set up.
It is an abbreviation of 髪結床 (kamiyuidoko) + 屋(ya 'store'). A person who works as a Japanese-style "barber" (髪結職 kamiyui-shoku) for men works at a 床店 (tokomise). Early examples of the profession are depicted in drawings from the mid-16th century, while the word "tokoya" only start to appear in early 19th century with this sense. The western sense of "barber" does not appear until the late 19th century.
I think there's a similar (but kinda reverse) story behind English 'stationer'
That's strange, because in Chinese, those characters (床屋) mean something like "bed room" or "bed house"
@@gaoxiaen1 probably because the characters appeared in japan more than 1000 years ago, and then the meanings of the characters kind of drifted apart in both languages. It can mean both bed and floor in japanese but in chinese it just means bed
I believe that the word "retail" comes from someone cutting pieces of cloth from a roll for customers, while the word "wholesale" comes from someone selling complete rolls of cloth.
Oh, that's interesting.
I think that may be incorrect. There are two uses of "retail" in Pride and Prejudice suggesting a more general meaning: re-trading or passing on something that you've acquired (rather than created). In the novel it refers to passing on information that you heard from someone rather than learning first-hand; it also implies gaining social status in the process. That concept is consistent with the modern meaning of retail: acquiring something from a wholesaler rather than creating it, then passing it on to someone else and gaining in the process. I guess in the cloth context, the wholesaler sells cloth to a retailer, who then cuts it into quantities appropriate for individual sale. So it's entirely likely those terms were used in the cloth industry, but they might have originated in a more general context.
Here are the Pride and Prejudice uses, heavily abridged:
Instance 1: In describing to her all the grandeur of Lady Catherine and her mansion...
he was happily employed...; and he found in Mrs. Philips a very attentive
listener, ... who was resolving to retail it all among her neighbours as
soon as she could.
Instance 2: Their party in the dining-room was large, for almost all the Lucases
came to meet Maria and hear the news: and various were the subjects
which occupied them; ... Mrs. Bennet was
doubly engaged, on one hand collecting an account of the present
fashions from Jane, who sat some way below her, and on the other,
retailing them all to the younger Miss Lucases...
Maybe RobWords can find out the origins of retail and wholesale and enlighten us! They would make an excellent complement to the Job Words series. :)
Thank you Grace. I genuinely appreciate a comment with good source material, and yours was excellent.
@@graceboucher2682 The OED has citations for "retail" going back to the 14th century, meaning to sell goods in relatively small quantity to the public (as distinct from wholesaling). This is straight from the Anglo-Norman retail/retaile/retaill/retaille/rettaille.
The two uses you mention in _Pride and Prejudice_ are figurative uses that evolved later, in the late 1500s. The second instance has the meaning of recounting or retelling in great detail, or repeating to others. The first instance could be either the same thing, or parcelling out (the meaning is now obsolete).
Re-tail as it been taille = cut? (Related to the origin of the word tailor)
I am flabbergasted. Thank you Rob!
I wonder what the origins are of Flabbergasted?
@@annafoley934 😅
7:28
tagliatelle - g is always silent in gli, which is always pronounced as l + consonant y:
ta[lya]telle - four syllables
Thank you 😊
I've never heard it pronounced like that. I think this is one of those words that has been adopted (incorrectly) and used so much in English that the original pronunciation has been totally lost (to us). It's usually a food item! Another example is 'chorizo'. Spanish pronunciation, I believe, is something like chuh'ritho. But it is almost always said as chuh'ritzo or, less commonly, chuh'rizo. At least we get the first syllable of it right!
@@oldnelson4298 words like tagliatelle and paella have begun to be pronounced by English speakers in their original way. People are being introduced to these recipes online
@@oldnelson4298 Or tortilla with L ...
@@aramisortsbottcher8201 tortilla with the Ls sounds like it should be invading from the northern steppes...
@@longpinkytoes I am now going to make Tortilla the Hun.
Was so grateful to the RUclips algorithm for recommending me your channel! Could you also make a video about Grimm’s law? It would be fascinating to hear you tell about it
It is spooky that you say this because Grimm's Law will be a big feature of my next video. Stay tuned!
In Dutch we have the word 'habbekrats' meaning something very small and of little value. It has origins in Yiddish and German.
Probably not from German. Double b is not so much ours. The translation Spottpreis is a further indication. Krats could be a cognate of kratzen (scratch).
@@Eddi.M. and that's "spotprijs" in Dutch.
@@Eddi.M. Yiddish has plenty of "bb" in it, already.
And why do you never polish your shoes?
Such a disappointment to me, oy vey...
@@Eddi.M. I could imagine German dialects have more bb, like the hessian "habbe"/"hawwe" (haben/to have).
@@aramisortsbottcher8201 Still, that would be a handful of words. Also in the North. F, V and W are candidates to be changed into B, but not very often as double B. We use more the double P instead.
I'm so glad you covered the term 'costermonger'. I knew a little about it, thanks to Gilbert and Sullivan, namely 'A Policeman's Lot' from 'Pirates of Penzance': When the coster's finished jumping on his mother, he loves to lie a-basking in the sun...'
And then there's the song 'A Little Priest' from 'Sweeney Todd'. As Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett discuss the various types of pies, she insists that one 'has to be grocer; it's green'.
If I recall correctly, by the 18th century, 'milliner' referred specifically to a maker of women's hats, men's hats being made by a hatter.
A policeman 's lot is not a happy one
Groceries - at least where I lived in Scotland, we always called the weekly food shop groceries. The change was supermarkets selling non foods in the mid 80’s. If you add a pack of t-shirts and a pressure cooker into that basket, it’s no longer groceries. It’s ‘the’ shopping. Frozen food shops (or freezer markets as they were called also played a part) because groceries assumed a decent percentage of fresh food.
Love your videos Rob. 10 minutes watching, 5 hours mulling it over 😂
"Many a merchant made their money..." I like your use of alliteration 🤣🤣
Hello 🤗 speaking of web and weaver, in Turkish ör means weave, örü or örgü means thing that is weaved 🕸️ and örümcek means spider 🕷️
In portuguese, the word for someone born in Brazil is "Brasileiro" wich uses the "-eiro" suffix, which is mostly used for professions. The correct suffix to use would've been "-iano", thus "Brasiliano" (similar to the english "Brazilian" and the french "Bresilien")
The way in which it became a gentilic is because back in the day, "brasileiro" was a word used in Portugal to describe someone who traded brazilwood, the tree that gave its name to the country. In fact, the first emperor of Brazil, Pedro I, was nicknamed "O Brasileiro" by the Portuguese Cortes because of his affinity to the country.
I found your channel last week and, having watched all of your videos, I can say that you're one of my favourite content creators and educators on this platform. Side note--I'm autistic and love learning about etymology (it's one of my "special interests," but I find that term diluted and boring), so watching and rewatching your videos (sometimes for hours) is tremendously fulfilling. Thank you very much for making these.
There is a rare Japanese family name called 筋師 _Sujishi_ literal meaning "muscle master". Apparently its an old word for people who butchered whales, as you needed to be really strong to do that.
I really appreciate these nuggets of Japanese info!
I think suji is more like sinew. Kin would be muscle. ie 筋肉
A name that would shame me
Whale is delicious, cows fed on seafood
There is a fiction author named Terry Pratchett and in his fictional books he made up the family name Strong-in-the-arm which meant a Smith or metal worker.
In Scotland (not fiction) there exists the family name Armstrong because a knight on horse reached down and picked up his armored King and put him back on his horse after the king fell.
Great video as usual. Ethimology is a field of study that is practically never-ending, in the sense that there is always more things to learn. This because, as I learn some more of a new language, there are hundreds of ethimology connections to be made between English and the other languages.
Thank you Rob, your linguistic videos are the best on RUclips.
Greetings,
Anthony
New reality tv show about making hats " Who want to be a Milliner " .
😅
The segues into each of the topics in this video were so smooth they sounded very QI-esque. I can imagine them coming out of Stephen or Sandi as they're reading from the teleprompter.
I love this channel!
Swedish "mat" (meaning food) is pretty similar to English "meat". Swedish "fläskkött" (pork meat) is very close to Flesh meat. Swedish "mat och dryck" is the same as "meat and drink". Swedish "grossist" very similar to "groser" and meaning wholesaler/bulksaler.
English also retains "sweetmeat" for candy (from French sucre candi, fragment of sugar) and the simile, "as full of (something) as an egg of meat."
@Kane Feeling/being "mätt" also comes to mind. Vara/känna sig mätt 🇸🇪
"Mat" and "meat" are indeed cognates, as are "fläsk" and "flesh". In both cases, we are not agreeing on how narrow the definition should be. :-)
Rob - the ancient Livery Companies of the City of London have some interesting job titles - ie being guilds of trades, crafts and merchants. The Weavers Company is the oldest recorded. Company of Grocers and of Butchers, but hat makers are the Company of Feltmakers. The Pattenmakers made the wooden undershoe to protect your silk shoe. Cordwainers made shoes of Cordova leather. Loriners are the makers of horse bits - a lorin - and the makers of leather belts are the Company of Girdlers, girdles.
There is a Lightmongers company, but it is modern and involved with illumination, older references are to dealers in offal - ie 'lights'.
As always, you've presented a charming and informative piece. Your wit is much appreciated, along with your scholarship!
Thanks Lisa
sadly, sadly you missed the famous quote in Asterix in Britain.... "My tailor is rich!" Which was taken from a French schoolbook for English from the 60s, where this was one of the very first , and still sooo usable sentences... 😂🤣😂
In Dutch textbooks it used to be: papa fume une pipe.
@@kellydalstok8900 A famously useless one from an old English to French phrasebook, supposedly at least, was: "The postillion has been struck by lightning".
Hey, I've been binge-watching your entire channel out of order and I thought I'd pop a suggestion in the comments to the most recent video to increase the chances of getting noticed.
What about a video about the English (and beyond) words for family members? A lot of them will just go back to Proto-Indo-European, but it's an opportunity to explore why English has the concept of in-laws, i.e. sticking "in-law" onto existing family words to get new ones, while other languages have specific words for those same relations. It might also be worth mentioning that some languages are more specific than others when it comes to describing family ties, such as how the word "nipote" in Italian can mean a grandchild of either gender, but also a nephew or niece, while Latin, to my knowledge, was precise enough to have two separate sets of words for aunts and uncles on your mother or your father's side. AND it's a chance to take a little detour to Iceland for a look at their surnames!
Hope you'll take this into consideration. Keep up the good work!
We could always try coining some positive abstract mongers. The world could certainly do with the recognition of hopemongers and knowledgemongers
Would a venture capitalist specializing in retail be a mongermonger?
Oh yes, I am all for some lovemongering (OK though now that I have written it, that word could be misinterpreted 😂) and faithmongering.
@@beeble2003 That would probably refer to Philip Green, in which case the double pejorative is easily explained.
...and also some truthmongers, helpmongers and caremongers...?
@@RCake but lovemonger sounds much better than pimp or prostitution. Come one, come all, to the Lovemonger.
Why did I find your channel just now? I'm so glad you were recommended to me, I love learning etymologies! Binge watching here!
In Swedish we have the word Grossist, that's a word for what in English you would call a wholesaler.
Even though your videos mostly are about the English language, I still go oh I didn't know that about the Swedish language. Swedish is my native language. 😊
Hey cousin!
Is meat, used in the past for “food”, a descendant of “mat”, meaning food in Swedish? 🤔
Yeah, most European languages are very much intertwined. It's too bad we all had to go our own way and can't even talk to each other anymore. But every new generation of people find their peers and conspire to make the world their own.
@@LuisOrtizMBA I'm not sure. But my assumption is that it was so.
"Großhandel" in German. "groß" standing for large, big, tall. English seems to have more words for this than German.
I absolutely LOVE languages and their origins!! I love knowing where words come from!!! Please never stop making these videos!!
I love your videos. Keep 'em coming Rob.
there used to be a pub in the centre of Birmingham called the costermonger
Scandinavian languages still use a cognate of "meat" for food in general. For example the Norwegian word for food is "mat".
In modern German there is the much more specific cognate "Mett". It refers to chopped/minced/ground pork which is also referred to as "Hackepeter" (something like "chopped Peter") in some regions. It is eaten raw as a spread on bread or buns, usually topped with onions and sometimes garnished with pickles. Mett is also called "Maurermarmelade" (brick layer's jam) sometimes, as it is considered a favorite dish among hard working, down to earth people.
Raw pork sounds incredibly dangerous.
@@ferretyluv
Cured ham is raw pork, but most pork should indeed not be eaten raw.
In the south, there is the word Metzger for Butcher in German... And it sounds quite similar to the Hungarian word meszaros...
While "Met" in German is an alcoholic beverage made of fermented honey...
@@ppd3bw Which we call “mead.”
I am studying German and I love your references to the German origin of words
I think English and German have a common origin.
@@uingaeoc3905 Yes. English is a Germanic language. The word "English" refers to the Angles, a people from the area around the modern Danish-German border; the Saxons (as in "Anglo-Saxon") were from the area between there and what is today the Netherlands.
@@beeble2003 What sort of half wit are you to think someone whose user Name is in Anglo-Saxon script does not know this??!"! NO - English is a language with the same roots as the Germanic languages. It is NOT 'German' any more than German is 'English'.
DIKC #6@D
@@beeble2003 Western Germanic family together with Dutch, Flemish, Afrikaans, and Frisian. Also Low German should be counted in.
Broke: English
Woke: Anglosächsisch
The etymology of "butcher" is obvious - it just means "more butch".
Thank you. I'm hooked on your videos. I ration myself to a single daily dose!
George Mikes in his classic examination of the English "How to be an Alien" did this joke. "Fishmongers mong fish. Exactly the same as ironmongers and warmongers with iron and war. They just mong them."
In an episode of 'M*A*S*H," Maj. Burns calls Klinger a rumormonger, to which Klinger responds, "Would I mong you?"
7:13 the Tailor of Rob’s cut Rob’s face LOOKS SOOO SCARY
Watched this from Cairo, Egypt and really enjoyed it, fascinating how words develop . Keep up the great work.
I first encountered “monger” in Hamlet, and I believe that at least part the reason that “monger” has become pejorative is the association of the suffix with Polonius.
I grew up with a mother who loved words and word play, as do I. So we often investigated either the origins, or the earlier meanings of words. To my understanding, then, a haberdasher was a maker/seller of men's hats, while a milliner was a maker/seller of women's hats. The tailor and dressmaker handled the rest of the garments: mens' and womens', respectively. ;-)
I've always loved the term groceteria. The term is unnecessarily convoluted. It seems to have faded in Canada post-WWII, and I assume it is due to the rise of supermarkets.
Interesting. I thought a groceteria was a small store that sold both groceries and prepared food like sandwiches and hot drinks, a combination of grocery and cafeteria. I haven't seen one labelled as such for a pretty long time. Of course, supermarkets do that now, and often convenience stores, too.
♥️ your content! Thanks for this and all you’ve taught us across your videos.
FYI- the “G” in tagliatelle is silent. Or rather “GL” in Italian is pronounced as “LY” in English
Grazie per le informazioni dettagliate!
Even Mike Birbiglia doesn't know that, which drives me mad!
Thanks for the tip!
@@PopeLando Are you suggesting that he mispronounces his own name?
I love your channel. Please make more. :D
Hi Rob, great video, as usual. Please note that the group “gli” in “tagliatelle” is pronounced as IPA [ʎ], not [gl]. There are a few exceptions to this rule, like the word “glìcine” where it’s pronounced [gl] . Ciao!
Very interesting video as usual! In French, “grossier" used to mean someone who sell food in big quantity but now it rather qualifies someone with poor manners. “Grossiste” is the modern term for a wholesaler.
Exactly. The modern French word "grossier" has a meaning close to the (modern) English word "gross".
"Excellent well, you're a fishmonger!"
As for "meat" meaning any kind of food, Norwegian can probably explain that (the Norwegian word for food is "mat")
It’s “mat”, not “måt”.
As, of course, in swedish: mat
@@ragnkja Thanks for the correction!
Also the origin of 'mate', as in comrade or (now) friend:
late Middle English: from Middle Low German māt(e ) ‘comrade’, of West Germanic origin; related to meat (the underlying concept being that of eating together).
I have been enjoying your video Mr Rob. I really love knowing etymology of this words, It feels like giving the words that we already familiar with a new life.
Thanks for the knowledge.
In Iceland we still call vegetables “green meat” or grænmeti which literally translates to green foods. The -meti part is an archaic version of mat, the Icelandic word for food and is related to the English word meat
Hapertas - Possible spanish cognate(???): "harapos" meaning: rags, worn used-clothes.
That seems possible!
1:56 Strange how Rob's the pronunciation of ‘monger’ switches between ‘mung-er’ and ‘mun-ger’ throughout the video.
“talher” in Brazilian Portuguese (not sure about EuroPT) means CUTLERY - amaaaazing!!!
Another fantastic episode. Like I said before, I could watch a whole channel of _just_ job words. They tell us so much.
Also, now I know I've been understanding haberdasher wrong. Having really mostly encountered it in written work set during the period that it meant "hat maker", I assumed it still meant that. Interesting to see that it both changed and diverged.
Me too, I always assumed it meant a hat maker.
in context, i always took haberdasher to mean 'well-dressed-man' o_O
@@longpinkytoes "My, you look quite haberdashing today!"
My grandma was a seamstress, so haberdashery to me has always meant the buttons, zips, ribbons, threads, hooks and eyes, Velcro, lace trim, etc that you need to complete garments.
In Australia the large fabric shops all have a haberdashery department, which is often now shortened to "haby".
@@fionaanderson5796 Oddly enough, my mom was a seamstress for a good number of years (then a waitress, then a nurse). But that didn't help me much in North America, given which way we went on the definition fork.
I saw you on DW yesterday!
A Milliner is more specifically a women’s hat maker.
A men’s hat maker is simply a hatter (as in “Mad Hatter”).
Milliner... a very similar history to the Australian definition of a department where you buy bed linen... They call this Manchester, as back in the day Manchester in the UK was the leading supplier of these items, so crates marked Manchester went to Australia, and so now they have, in major department stores a department called... Manchester
When I was a kid, the first time I heard someone refer to “millinery” I thought they were saying “military”. Hearing you explain the origin of millinery coming from Milan made me wonder if there’s any ancient military connection to Milan. The answer to that as far as I can tell is no, not particularly. But this sent me down a rabbit hole. I started wondering how Milan got its name, and now I am about 17 links deep in a Wikipedia chain learning about Celtic Insubres. I had no idea until now that Celtic referred to anything outside Ireland. This also sent me down a path learning about Gauls and Gaels, and honestly I’m so deep in all these tabs I’m getting a bit lost! Anyway, I guess what I’m saying is if you ever wanted to make a video about like….really really old European languages, and their movement through history, I’m fascinated but don’t even know where to start asking questions. Not sure if that’s in the scope of this channel, but just thought I’d share and see if it sparks anything.
I was presented with a map of Milan in which every house is labeled with the resident's name. As it was a semi-precious gift, I have framed and hung it on my drawing room.
The Celts now live in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Manx, Brittany, and many of the islands. At one stage they inhabited most of Britain and northern France, but they were pushed to the edges of the world by later waves of immigrants. From memory they originated in eastern Europe. (Eastern Europe must have been crowded. It seems like every group to ever inhabit western Europe came from there.)
And just to make it weird, apparently the word Celt comes from the Greek word keltoi, hence the hard k sound at the start.
@@fionaanderson5796 Thank you Fiona. It's often overlooked that the Welsh are Celtic, though Brythonic rather than Goedelic, from whom the Irish and Scots are descended. That Brythonic Celts inhabited most of what is now Great Britain can be seen in some Scottish place names such as "Aberdeen" ("aber" being the mouth of a river) and "Ben Nevis ("Pen, mutated to "Ben" means the top of a mountain). You are right about the hard "C" sound in "Celtic", and in Welsh all "Cs" are hard. We have no letter "K". The soft "C" sound is replaced by "s" in Welsh.
Hi Rob, I just wanted to let you know that these videos of yours are top notch. You are clearly a man of vast knowledge in language. I learn a lot of interesting stuff from you and show my family some of your vids.
So thank you and have a wonderful day! 👍😉
Great episode, I've learnt a lot! :) However, I found it a bit hard to concentrate with all that noise in the background.
I thought Rob was struggling a bit with the noise too
When preceding an "l" in Italian, the "g" moves the middle of the tongue of the "l" sound to the the middle of your hard palate instead of at your teeth. The "g" is not pronounced and the "l" is tongued from the middle of the hard palate. Love your stuff!
I've only just noticed that although I know grocer and grocery are pronounced with an "s" sound, I actually pronounce it groshery and grosher. I think it's a regional dialect thing because my whole family says the word this way.
Lemme guess-Gileadites? 😜
Of course, pronouncing 's' as 'sh' ( /s/ → /ʃ/ ) is quite common around the world. Bengalis in India do that all the time. Throws you off-guard the first time you hear "Take a seat." 🤣
Germans also do that in words starting with 'st' and 'sp'. Strudel, Spaghetti, ...
Naturally, the opposite-pronouncing 'sh' as 's' ( /ʃ/ → /s/ ) also happens. The most famous legend being, of course, what I alluded to earlier: The Ephraimites-counterparts to the Gileadites-who pronounced 'shibboleth' as 'sibboleth'.
But even in modern times, I know of some regional dialects of Hindi (in India) where the same thing happens. Examples:
• The Hindi word for 'noise' is pronounced as _shore_ in Standard Hindi, but as _sore_ in certain regional dialects.
• The Hindi word for 'city' is pronounced as _sheher_ in Standard Hindi, but as _seher_ in certain regional dialects.
@@nHans Surely you know what it means: yum-ya-yax-eye-yum-yu-yum? Once I was asked by a small girl: can you spell zero?
It's so interesting the way words evolve.
In portuguese we have:
Grocista - the shop where you can buy in bulk
Talho - butcher (shop)
Talhante - the person who cuts/sells meat
Entalhe - sculpted wood
Thanks for filming your video between a madhouse and a monkey exhibit, the noise wasn't distracting at all
"mat" means "food" in the scandinavian languages.
In French also, the old word "carn, car, char, chair", meaning "flesh" and "meat" was replaced by "viande", from Latin "vivenda", from "vivere" = to live.
We also say "des vivres" for "supplies, provision" (to eat).
How is "mets" used in French, and did it come from a Germanic language?
Mature coming from ripening foods / mats ? In dutch we have the term maatje (a mate or buddy in english) for a 'salted herring' but in german they say 'matjes'. It are litterally ripened or fermented raw fishes whereby only salt is used for the maturing proces.
@@b.a.erlebacher1139 According to my dictionary, "mets" comes from the Latin "missum" = sent (on the table).
The "t" is not etymological, and seems never to have been pronounced. It was added by scholars just to complicate the spelling, probably by attraction of the verb "mettre" = to put.
@@Frilouz79 Thanks! Which makes me wonder whether "mess", the military term for place to eat, comes from French by the same derivation. It was once used for a serving of prepared food in English, as in the King James bible, where Esau eats "a mess of pottage", pottage of course from "potage". Etymology can really send you down a rabbit hole...
@@b.a.erlebacher1139 medieval cook books sometimes use the term "mess it forth" although "serve it forth" is more common. A recipe will occasionally tell you "for X messes" - ten serves.
I’ve never cared about spelling or grammar in my life…. but I love this channel. Thanks Rob!!
8:20 Millenia from now, future anthropologists will wonder, completely baffled, at the mysterious meaning of “misc.” (miscellaneous) and what specifically it was.
Good point!
And find that it's not specific at all. 😁
New to your channel. I am learning so much!! What a great teacher you are!
Unfortunate the crowd near you was so loud....but enjoyed the knowledge
I loved the background! So full of life
Brilliant again Rob. Some answers almost sound obvious, but yet I've gone a long life not connecting one word with another. Thanks.
I took a shot at summarizing:
Monger
Comes from the classical latin Mangō meaning a trader
Old English changed it to Manger (pronounced monger) or Magnere, Mongere, Mongar etc.
Grocer
Post-classical latin had Grossarius meaning someone who sold in large quantities
Changed into the French Grossier before changing into the English Grocer
Tailor
Comes from the medieval Latin word Tailiare meaning to cut
Changed to the old French word Tailleor meaning someone who cuts.
Haberdasher
Comes from Aglo-norman as someone who sells Hapertas.
Hapertas exact definition is unknown but may have meant a type of fabric, or assorted small items.
Milliner
Comes from renaissance Italy Milan, where merchants selling garments were called Milliners.
Changed from garments in general to hats.
Weaver
Comes from the indo-germanic word Webh meaning web.
Good work, dude!
My children always teased me with, “Mom, words are your life.” I always insisted on proper usage (avoiding “ruined” words). You,Rob, have really made words your life! I applaud you, sir.
I love hearing happy people in the background! Sets a nice mood. It's way better than some of the annoying and distracting music some videos have. Love these videos!
I like that you're positive, but I find it stressful and distracting hearing kids yelling in the background. :)
Diary products = white meat - in Polish diary products (and eggs too) are collectively called "nabiał", and the root word here is an adjective "biały" (masc., "biała" for feminine gender, "białe" for neuter one). Also, that "gross" = "bulk" or "wholesale" (in German "Großhandel) is a source for Polish "cent", i.e. "grosz" (pron. grosh).
Obviously, it's current status and value has diverted quite a lot from its medieval (I believe) meaning - which was "a big/ thick coin" (i.e. valuable one).
EDIT: Fun fact - in Polish eggs are called "jaja" (yaya)... Wait. "Jajko (yayko) is a PROPER singular nominative (jajka for plural, neuter gender), but the common/ colloquial word is "jaja" (plural; "jajo" for singular - probably harking back to Old Polish jajca/ jajco, or even older "wajca/ wajco" - still existing in Czech, "vajca" AFAIR - and keep in mind that Polish "w" is pronounced as "v" -but I digress here).
Anyway, that "jajca" is also a synonym - or euphemism - for what English speaking folks refer to as "balls" - like in "you gotta have balls to do it". Seems to me that both the shape and fragility, so to speak, of the organ in question are better served by that "eggs" euphemism than "balls", but I digress again.
Anyway, the problem with euphemisms is such, that after "some time" they become THE word for THE thing, and they kinda cease to be euphemisms... so a new euphemism for "former, now defunct" one has to be invented, and this is where the "nabiał" makes its comeback. Namely, if someone wants to refer to "those things" in a polite manner, he (or she) uses the word "nabiał" instead of "jaja".
I like the idea of filming on-location in public, but the background noise was pretty loud/distracting at parts. Might need a better noise-isolating microphone if you want to do it again.
🤫 Maybe a cemetery 🪦 instead of a playground 🛝 next time?!?! 😅
(Great vid!)
I’m sure this comes as no surprise, but Dutch and German both have the same meaning in their words for Tailor. Snijder and Schneider both literally mean “one who cuts.”
But the word "snijder" is almost not used anymore in Dutch.
Did you get bitten by a radio-active piano?
@@koosme6624 Which word is used then?
@@aramisortsbottcher8201 'Kleermaker' is the common word for a tailor in Dutch. 'Snijder' does indeed sound extremely old fashioned (as in I've never heard anyone use it in this context).
@@aramisortsbottcher8201 in Belgien benutzt mann es öfter aber in Niederländisch "Kleermaker"
The word is mostly used in Belgium, in the Netherlands the word "kleermaker" is more common.
To weave in spanish is tejer, tejer is related to textile (woven fabrics), text (as in weaving a story), and technology (as in the craft and tools used to weave). I am truly fascinated by this etymology. Like weaving has been around since we spoke indo-european.
“So off to the haberdasher she did go,
As fast as she could ru-u-un.
She bought him a pair,
The best that was there,
And the soldier put them on.” 🎼🎶🎵
great song :) 😋🌷🌱
I feel compelled to point out that mincemeat pies traditionally did contain meat, in the flesh meat sense. The tendency to leave the meat out is a product of the early 20th century, though some people - my old Yankee grandmother, for example - still make theirs with meat. The aforementioned grandmother always made her with venison.
I read down the comments to see if someone had mentioned this. Many recipes for mincemeat still call for beef suet although commercial ones tend to be vegetarian these days.
We had haberdashery shops or sections in department stores. They sold bits and bobs related to making things. So: pins and needles, buttons, scissors, tape measures, thread, wool, lace and other bric-a-brac . Some would even carry a small selection of cloth.
big props for the writing at 9:13 very powerful :)
This is such a brilliant channel.
Monger is one of my favourite words to say because I often say it after I've been the the fish monger! (I live in a coastal town in Australia so the seafood is great!). I'm hanging out for Nov 16 when lobster season opens again!
I totally would have watched this if it were not for the background noise. But I'm sure it was a lovely video that many people enjoyed. I may try it again sometime with the volume off.
Excellent as always.👍
RobWords has to be one of the best channels on RUclips.
In Shetland dialect "maet" is still sometimes used to refer to food generally, and meat is sometimes still referred to as flesh...
(I say this as a non native resident who studies the local dialect informally)
A South African here, thanks for the shout-out!
Love your work Rob; very entertaining.
Interesting video, I have to say my favourite moment was a bit of alliteration - Many a merchant made their money...
Man! I don't know English well, but i always watch yours videos and gather plenty of new information. About language which i really don't know. And i have fun!
Thank You for your work :)