My favourite dictionary definition has got to be in Chambers... *mist: a light fog* and *fog: a heavy mist.* A never ending loop.

@SpiritmanProductions

Жыл бұрын

Like the computing glossary that literally had "Endless Loop - see Loop, Endless" and ... you know the rest. ;-)

@gcewing

Жыл бұрын

recursion: see recursion

@hanstheexplorer

Жыл бұрын

@@gcewingLoop: See loop.

@yahccs1

Жыл бұрын

It's a good thing it wasn't a formula on Excel, it would object and pop up an error box "circular reference warning"!

@kindnessfirst9670

Жыл бұрын

Like my being severely dyslexic and told to look up in a dictionary the correct spelling of words. If I can't spell a word how can I find it in a dictionary in the first place?

As an academic who is required to publish a "syllabus" which many students immediately lose, I enjoyed learning it was a ghost word.

@silvertbird1

Жыл бұрын

Seemingly appropriately, given how many syllabi (Cicero, forgive me) so spook the students.

@maikehudson333

Жыл бұрын

IKR?

@quakxy_dukx

Жыл бұрын

@@silvertbird1 since it’s supposedly Greek, should it not be syllaboi?

@zorkwhouse8125

Жыл бұрын

Similarly, going through all levels of college and being handed a syllabus (often written on the sheet or at the very least called it such out loud as it was handed out) for each class at the beginning of the semester does make this absolutely hilarious. Doubly, with the stuffy, though I guess grammatically correct were it an actual word, sounding plural version as well. :-)

@pyropulseIXXI

Жыл бұрын

Your mom is an academic

In Danish dictionary circles, the term “penguin words” refers to commonly used words that made it into the dictionary far too late because they were just … forgotten. The word “penguin” was not in the dictionary until 1986.

@pashakdescilly7517

Жыл бұрын

The word 'penguin' itself has amusing origins. An early Antarctic exploration ship had some Welsh sailors. They saw a weird bird swimming / flying at speed under water, and one exclaimed 'Pen gwin' - 'pen' is Welsh for 'head', 'gwin' is Welsh for 'white'. Those funny birds flying under water had white heads.

@eekee6034

Жыл бұрын

@@pashakdescilly7517 Sooo... why was it originally the name of the great auk, an arctic bird? :) And... um, I simply must ask, what penguin has a white head?

@HeatherMyfanwyTylerGreey

Жыл бұрын

@@eekee6034 When a penguin is swimming it is the white face you see through the waves at a distance, not the black. Therefore the sailors saw the 'white' heads first.

@lapatron555

Жыл бұрын

​@@HeatherMyfanwyTylerGreey unfortunately you are mistaken about this source! It is probably a false cognate because the Great Auk, (Pinguinus impennis, 1791) was named much earlier than antarctic exploration in Europe (from the latin pinguis meaning plump and other romance language names for the bird) and later penguins were named after the Great Auk because of their similar appearance.

@indowneastmaine

10 ай бұрын

Back in the 80s I used to call danish pastries ‘penguins’, so that makes sense.

"Ampersand" is a bit of a ghost word as well. The symbol "&" was originally called "per-se and" (i.e. literally 'and'), and it was included at the end of the alphabet as the twenty-seventh letter. School children, rushing through their recitals of the alphabet, would run the last few letters together as "X, Y, Z and-per-se-and" much like they do today with "H I J K elemeno P". It's also interesting to note that the "&" symbol itself is actually the latin word "et", with the "e" and "t" merged together into a single symbol.

@JustinShaedo

Жыл бұрын

I found this fascinating. Then my housemates found it fascinating too :D

@Kualinar

Жыл бұрын

I prefer the French name of that character : «éperluette» = & Also, the French name for @ is «arobas». Not new at all. It was used in the medieval times to address mail to a specific person in some place. Initially a monk in a monastery, then, expanded to peoples in a village : Mail to Brother.Costello@St.Martin.Abbey. Does that look familiar ?

@MommyOfZoeAndLiam

Жыл бұрын

Cool! How long ago was that dropped from inclusion in the English alphabet?

@TheGreatRoja

Жыл бұрын

@@MommyOfZoeAndLiam I think it was within the last one or two hundred years

@ValkyRiver

Жыл бұрын

I thought that the ampersand was used by the French physicist Ampere...

A Dane approach a tweedclad Scotsman and asked if he'd consider his tweed jacket durable? "I don't know", he answered, "I've only worn it for 35 years".

@bryanjackson8917

Жыл бұрын

Just like when someone asks me "have you lived here all your life" to which I often reply "I don't know, I haven't died yet!"

@RSProduxx

Жыл бұрын

@@bryanjackson8917 In Bavaria and Austria they say something like "Greet God" as a greeting.. I usually answer "well, if I get to see him..."

@AndrewAMartin

Ай бұрын

@@RSProduxx That's a bit of a mis-translation - "Gruesse Gott" doesn't mean the imperative (You) Greet God, but the noun Greetings (from) God.

@RSProduxx

Ай бұрын

@@AndrewAMartin Honestly, it´s a joke, I don´t care about historical or etymological accuracy in that case.

@AndrewAMartin

Ай бұрын

@@RSProduxx but your joke doesn't work if it isn't funny, because it isn't understood. To any German speaker, your answer doesn't make sense and can even be taken as rude. That's nothing to do with etymology or history, it's just bad manners...

LOL...the tale of "DORD" reminds me of a supposedly true story I read WAY back when I was in high school...(that would be over 50 years ago...)! There was a young military recruit whose parents, for some unknown reason, had given him only initials as his first and middle name. "B. N. Jones." At the recruiting station, the officer filling out the forms wrote "B (only), N (only) Jones." After a some time had passed, at mail call, the sergeant called out mail for "Bonly Nonly Jones." !!!

@robomonkey6219

Жыл бұрын

I once knew a man who said he never had a middle name until the army gave him one: Nmi. The recruiter had filled out the forms with nmi to indicate "no middle initial".

@hanstheexplorer

Жыл бұрын

D or d!

@ericwilner1403

Жыл бұрын

I heard that story with the name being Ronly Bonly Smith, and it was the name on a credit card.... And I thought "DorD" was Dungeons or Dragons (take your pick; we're on a budget).

@mal2ksc

Жыл бұрын

Are you sure you didn't hear that story from Harry Sonly Truman?

@bengilkes7676

Жыл бұрын

I researched my ancestry and found that one of my female ancestors was on the census with the same surname as myself, but her five children were listed as having the surname "aswell".

Decades ago I worked as a musician and arranger for an entertainment company. The tall amplifiers that we would take on tour had protective plastic shell covers attached with spring-loaded fasteners that were attached or released by pulling on a ring and twisting. One day a colleague said, "You know what these are called? Cows!" He pointed to a red plastic label, the kind made with an old label gun, that said "To release turn cow." For nearly three years we called those things "cows" around the studio and shared this "knowledge" with venue crews up and down the American west coast. Then one day I took a closer look at that label and realized that the somewhat faded "o" was in fact a weakly pressed second "c." What the label really said was "TO RELEASE TURN CCW" -- counterclockwise.

@user-yi8uu1du3b

3 ай бұрын

I was told that those beer mats that you fold and put und table legs to stablise a four legged table - were called a "ludlow" . I have no idea if it was genuine, but I spread the word often, why not? I assumed it originated in the quaint UK town of Ludlow - in England near mid Wales.

@stephenbaker7079

3 ай бұрын

We say 'anti-clockwise' in England!

@jessicapatton2688

Ай бұрын

Lol! Good story. I wonder how far your wrong word traveled before someone noticed.

I can't help but be reminded of the Blackadder the Third episode featuring the late Robbie Coltrane as Samuel Johnson, and Blackadder trying to confuse him with made-up words. And also the Victoria Coren series Balderdash & Piffle, which looked into the origin and use of words. I offer you my contrafibularities on another excellent episode.

@siggimund

Жыл бұрын

I'm anaspeptic, phrasmotic, even compunctuous to have ever heard of such a pericombobulation. 😁

@rogink

Жыл бұрын

Yes, I was hoping there would be an RIP for the late great Mr Coltrane.

@mcolville

Жыл бұрын

Rowan Atkinson was also on a sketch comedy show called Not The Nine O'clock News which featured a sketch in which he played a gorilla, and they used the term "flange" for the collective noun. A flange of gorillas. Which then entered the actual scientific lexicon for a while.

@RobWords

Жыл бұрын

I remember Balderdash and Piffle. Loved it. Thanks for the comment.

@RobWords

Жыл бұрын

I'm stealing this for my video about collective nouns. Thanks.

There is something even weirder in Japanase, called "Ghost Characters" (幽霊文字). While you can certainly make up new Japanese compound words or loan words, for a new "word" i.e. kanji character to become legitimate you would need to add it to unicode/JIS as a separate character. Thus, the fact there are characters of unknown meaning registered there, makes them more spooky than the ghost words. 墸 壥 妛 彁 挧 暃 椦 槞 蟐 袮 閠 駲 Most of them are probably misinterpreted of existing kanji (i.e. 妛 → 𡚴 or 彁 → 彊 or 挧 → 栩), or characters used in old names that have been forgotten (駲 probably). ... _but who can know for sure_ ... 👻

@edderiofer

Жыл бұрын

Yep, I was just about to mention this myself. I think at one point someone even came up with whimsical definitions of each one as a type of Japanese youkai (ghost/monster), but unfortunately I can't find it now. Annoyingly, 𡚴 is used in the name of some Japanese villages, but 𡚴 wasn't added until years after 妛 was. So for some time, the people living in those villages had no choice but to misspell their village's name when typing it out! Ditto for a number of these other characters.

@HasekuraIsuna

Жыл бұрын

@@edderiofer With how rather common 髙 is, it's amazing it was so hard to type on a computer for the longest time.

@a-bombmori7393

Жыл бұрын

This reminds me a lot of MissingNo. from Pokemon. When a Pokemon was removed during development they didn't move all the other Pokemon in the list up one to replace it, they instead replaced the spot in the index with junk data, which ended up as MissingNo.. Because of that, all of the several Pokemon that never made it to the finished game have something very similar to a ghost, with what remains of them haunting the game's memory. Certainly adding to the mystique and atmosphere of the situation is the fact that when encountered in certain contexts, MissingNo.'s sprite uses the skeletal sprites of fossil Pokemon or the ghost sprite used by Pokemon in Pokemon tower.

@eyeofthasky

Жыл бұрын

or since "Japanese" characters dont exist, they are CHINESE, just put them into a online version of an character dictionary (like ShuoWenJieZi -- the remaining fragment of the original is even unjustly in a Museum in Japan instead of China) which also includes ancient and outdated characters if u wanna know what they mean . . . 壥 > ancient variant of 廛 market place 妛 > ancient variant of 媸 ugly woman 暃 > the color of sunlight 椦 > ancient variant of 棬 with 3~4 pronunciations: 1) "utensil, made of bent wood", a wooden scoop or bowl, 2) the thing u put into the nose of cattle to restrain them, 3) the name of a province in vietnam during han dynasty 4) (i am not able to translate the cryptic ancient chinese there properly sry) etc. ... right now no time to check the other characters, sorry :x

@jonadabtheunsightly

Жыл бұрын

@@eyeofthasky There are a handful of uniquely Japanese kanji, (wasei kanji, i.e., characters in Japanese that are made out of radicals in the manner of Chinese characters but never existed in Chinese or Korean). Though there are way more wasei eigo words, i.e., Japanese words _supposedly_ of English origin, that never existed in English.

But how can you have remorse unless you have first felt morse? (Sorry, I’m having way too much fun with this 😅)

@clairebpbutler2789

Жыл бұрын

My thought exactly 😂

@leefisher6366

Жыл бұрын

I think that is a very ept comment.

@larsjonasson2959

Жыл бұрын

In French you can feel a "morsure" (bite). Remorse is simply feeling the bite again.

@bryanjackson8917

Жыл бұрын

How can you go "back" unless you first go "forth"? How can you "relax" unless you first "lax"? How can you "return" unless you first "turn"?

@edinacloud5968

Жыл бұрын

@@leefisher6366 is that the opposite of inept?

For a long time, I read the word "com" in an antique song book. As it was old, I assumed the word had fallen into disuse. It turned out the word was "corn" in an old-fashioned type face that blurred the letters together. Strangely as I write this I have a sense of deja vu, as though I've explained this before in a dream. Most odd, as I have never related this to anyone previously.

@rhiannon.de.rohan-thomas

Жыл бұрын

Maybe the deja vu was your conscious mind connecting with a subconscious hive mind of all the other people who have done this. 👻 Sometimes when I write too fast, this accidentally happens; my 'rn' will look like 'm' & my 'cl' will look like 'd' etc.

@ericpaul4575

Жыл бұрын

Ah good old keming.

@b.a.erlebacher1139

Жыл бұрын

Programs that convert images of text into text have a lot of trouble with r n -> m in particular.

@bryanjackson8917

Жыл бұрын

The original spelling of "corn" was actually "corm", so perhaps someone just left out the "r".

@h00db01i

Жыл бұрын

there's a strange cult I've seen on facebook where people replace "r" with "n" and "n" with "m". I believe it's called "lomgposting"

"Dord" really is a word, though whether it's English or not depends on your definition of an English word. It comes from the Irish Gaelic and means a bronze battle trumpet from the Bronze Age. A few dords have been found by archaeologists, and musical experts speculate on how it was played

The place name Agloe, in NY State, was used as a copyright trap by map makers who felt certain they had a claim against a rival when it appeared on another map. It turned out that someone had opened a shop in that location and looked on the map for help in finding an appropriate name. They opened Agloe General Stores and the place became real. Edited: Agloe, not Algoe

@ragnkja

Жыл бұрын

It’s actually Agloe, and it’s an anagram of the initials of the cartographers who made it up, Otto G. Lindberg and Ernest Alpers.

@mattmexor2882

Жыл бұрын

Not sure the veracity of this, but I heard that the mapmaker attempted to sue someone who had included Agloe on their maps and they lost the case, owing to the existence of the business.

@gauharjamal8791

Жыл бұрын

Mission failed successfully

@stegra5960

Жыл бұрын

@@mattmexor2882 I believe Esso had acquired the rights to the map and began the legal process but quickly dropped the case when rival enlightened them as to the situation.

@aimeepotts2137

Жыл бұрын

The book "The Cartographers" is all about Agloe, NY. It was really interesting.

"Morse" may be a mistake in relation to nurses but it IS a real word. In some formal circumstances, clergy sometimes wear a vestment called a cope. Anyone else would say, "cape". The morse is the name of the metal clasp just under the neck that holds it closed. In some churches, bishops will have distinctive morses different than the deacons and presbyters.

@mcloughlinguy4127

Жыл бұрын

morse code

@clairebpbutler2789

Жыл бұрын

It also made me wonder about "remorse" (as in, to 'morse' again) although I'm sure that's not how that word works.

@molybdomancer195

Жыл бұрын

Morse is also a rare word for walrus.

@Milamberinx

Жыл бұрын

@@clairebpbutler2789 hah, that's funny. If every re- word were to be doing something again it would make for some very funny interpretations. Is a 'request' a second 'quest'? Perhaps when I 'remember' I'm bringing back a former 'member'.

@SenselessUsername

Жыл бұрын

I'm not underwhelmed by this thread as there's plenty good arguments nor am I overwhelmed by the masses of good points --- so, I'm... whelmed.

I imagine, "gravy" could also have been a word with meaning "full of graves". "He heard once the village he was going to was foggy, spooky and gravy".

@thevalarauka101

4 ай бұрын

gravey more likely?

Please never run out of words. The erudite commentary and soothing narration tamps down the murderous misanthropic rage inside me.

@PiousMoltar

Жыл бұрын

Mm yes words good

@zombieregime

Жыл бұрын

Then we all must agree to stop holding each other to such rigid ideals of communication. In order for there to be the infinite words you desire, one cannot chastise another for using a turn of phrase or a twist of word parts to make a new word. If language never evolved we would all still be speaking Latin. Instead of playing the superiority game, let us celebrate word play. You never know what will stick through the ages....

@envitech02

Жыл бұрын

@@markdavis7397 😂😂😂 Shakespeare would be proud!

@soldierside365

Жыл бұрын

@@markdavis7397 *morse

@elizabethsohler6516

8 ай бұрын

@@markdavis7397 Nicely put or classic burn? I'm not sure which.

That D or d had me laughing out loud fr! Honestly, I didn't even see it until Rob showed it. Now we expect no esquivalience from Mr Words going forwards! Another great video, love this channel!

@SeekingTheLoveThatGodMeans7648

Жыл бұрын

And here I was going to ask That Chemist what the dordiest substance is.

@taraking6472

Жыл бұрын

And it took 5 years to catch it.

@human7491

Жыл бұрын

@@SeekingTheLoveThatGodMeans7648 dordest*

@derbazi257

Жыл бұрын

When i saw this I was for the first time in my life grateful we use as many Greek letters in science as we do

@bryanjackson8917

Жыл бұрын

Only a dork would think that "dord" was a real word.

I’m glad you mentioned the fake placenames used by cartographers - I’ve found a few of them on maps. I like the nouncombining of Richard Jodrell - that certainly makes English more of a funlanguage.

@bungaIowbill

Жыл бұрын

the inconsistency in compound words is so confusing. like, why is it a teaspoon and a tea cup? from now, I am a staunch Jodrellian -- compoundwords shall be spaceless! Infact,abolishspacesalltogether!Lettherebeunityamongallwords

@twincast2005

Жыл бұрын

I actively hate the English language pretending in arbitrary spellings that it grammatically forms more specific nouns the French way instead of the German way. "It looks nicer," is even less of a valid reason (and I've several peeves with German on that basis - V, EI, ST, SP, a bunch of nonsense). Also, due to how little inflection is left in English, spaces between parts of a noun cause much more confusion ("Is it a verb or not?") than any long compound ever could (and the latter can be solved with dashes).

@riverAmazonNZ

Жыл бұрын

@@bungaIowbill have you heard the story about #susanalbumparty? 😆

@ragnkja

Жыл бұрын

@@riverAmazonNZ And that’s one of the reasons why you use CamelCase for hashtags. The other reason is that it enables screen readers to read the tag correctly.

@geoffroi-le-Hook

Жыл бұрын

@@ragnkja Thirty years ago we called that WordPerfect case.

As a modern American English lyricist, finding your page is like a kid in a candy store. Thanks for all this content, now I'll be busy for a while absorbing it all😂

Thank you for the great content! In Italian we have a famous ghost word still used to this day: "busillis". Originally a misreading from a scribe (circa 1100) of the word phrase "in diebus illis". We still use it to this day (including in famous literature) to talk about, variously, a "confusing issue", "nonsense" and also "complex issue". 😊😊

Well "foupe" seemed pretty normal to me. We used to use it when we were joking around and used a spoonerism for "fell swoop". "He knocked them down in one swell foop." Funny that "swoop" was involved in your presentation as well. Entertaining and instructive video as usual. Thanks.

@driverjayne

Жыл бұрын

Swell foop is the title of a piers Anthony book

@claydenlinger2043

Жыл бұрын

I love spoonerisms. As someone who grew up in Cipp Tity - I mean Tipp City, Ohio, I've had a lifetime obsession with them.

@LemoUtan

Жыл бұрын

I suppose there's a souped-up motor for the impetuous driver

@rahb1

Жыл бұрын

People who say "foul swoop" make me want to knock them down in one fell swoop! (I really *love* 'swell foop' though!)

@pvp6077

Жыл бұрын

@@driverjayne i read that book as a kid and immediately thought of it when he started saying "foupe"

In Swedish creating compound words is perfectly normal. Translating those literally to Swedish all make sense. Writing words apart is often a bad error, such as "rök fritt" meaning "smoke freely" while "rökfritt" mans "smokeless" (or more often "no smoking").

@hansdorst3005

Жыл бұрын

Same in Dutch, allthough due to the big exposure to the English language nowadays you very often see words (wrongly) spelled with a space between them.

@Ned-Ryerson

Жыл бұрын

@@hansdorst3005 And of course in German, where compound nouns are so well known that they are never mentioned in relation to the other Germanic languages that have them. We even have two words for this very common spelling mistake: "Deppenleerstelle" (idiots' gap) or "Agovis" (a portmanteau of "agora" (space, emptiness) and "divis" (hyphen)).

@yahccs1

Жыл бұрын

I know someone who used to wonder who 'Nosmo King' was... this name was written in so many places!

@larsjonasson2959

Жыл бұрын

Compound words were much more common in English before the Norman Conquest in 1066. French became the official language until well into the Hundred Years' War and only the poor and illiterate used English, which changed the language a lot.

@Banom7a

Жыл бұрын

@@hansdorst3005 ah yes, the Engelse ziekte

My seventh grade teacher took offense to a word in one of my papers I wrote for her class. I had been very diligent in looking up the words in my mothers unabridged, library dictionary. She had marked me off for spelling errors that I knew to be correct. I looked them up again and made notes of each word marked as incorrect. I then brought this to my mothers attention who double checked my work and approved of it with the only note being that they were archaic spellings but nonetheless technically correct. I then had a plan. I wrote my next assignment with as many archaic words and spellings as possible. I had my mother proofread it and turned it in. My teacher spilled red on my paper from a bucket. A metaphor of corse. She gave me an F which is precisely what I was hoping for. I showed it to my mother who laughed about it. My mother took the day off and confronted my teacher and demanded an explanation. My teacher said that paper was simply incorrect and would not be acceptable. My mother then stated that she had personally proofread it and found it correct. My teacher then said “clearly you are not qualified to proofread your sons work”. My mother laughed and demanded her change my grade. My teacher then stated my mother didn’t have the knowledge or authority to demand such a thing as she clearly didn’t have a very good education. My mother laughed again. She said “I am a technical publications editor for The United States Army and was a graduate of the Officers academy. Needless to say I got an A on my paper. Don’t laugh and say my momma wears combat boots because she could kick your…. I am very proud of my mother and grateful that should stood up for me.

@roberthudson1959

Жыл бұрын

Great story, but what in the world is "the Officers academy?" USMA, OCS, or ROTC?

@TVVENCH

Жыл бұрын

is this a creepy pasta? 🫠

@KECOG

11 ай бұрын

I wish I could star this comment! :) ✴✴✴✴✴

@walterthomas8855

10 ай бұрын

I had a female highschool teacher of English who used to say: "dictionary habit...". but she marked "thorpe", in my work, with a red question mark. I re-submitted the essay with a photocopy of a dictionary entry of the word "thorpe" and her favorite expression written boldly upon it. She never mentioned dictionaries again! Never got an A on any work after that! I wonder why...!

@ryandavis7593

10 ай бұрын

@@walterthomas8855 Lol. Teachers have diaphanous egos.

In Iceland we combine two or three words into one. If written separately the sentence often makes no sense. For example if you say hairbrush, the emphasis is on brush as the object and the first part tells you what kind of brush it is. Separately these are just the words hair and brush like if you are listing those things without the comma in between. Orangepeel is a specified thing. A type of peel. Orange peel are two separate things you have to name in the right order in English to make sense, but you could just as well be saying peel orange. To complicate there is a thing called orange peel oil. In Icelandic it would be one word with the emphasis on oil. We are talking about a certain type of oil, not an orange nor a peel.

Re Phantomnation, that reminds me of a bit I've heard on a Doctor Who extra from a DVD. A fan who later went on to work on Who was terrified by Terry Nation's daleks, and his aunt then thought that the word for being terrified by them was "terrination".

I have an original Dord dictionary - Webster's New Second Edition Unabridged with Reference History - and I love it. I wish they still made encyclopedic dictionaries like this.

I remember being told “gravy” and “gravity” shared the same root word, meaning heavy. Gravy was a thick, heavy sauce. Made sense to my young, pre-Google, mind.

@vahonenko

Жыл бұрын

I imagine, "gravy" could also have been a word with meaning "full of graves". "He heard once the village he was going to was foggy, spooky and gravy".

@ofacid3439

5 ай бұрын

I for some reason always confused gravy with gravel. Like gravy country road

The word esquivaliance reminds me of a Dutch made up word : epibreren. It means 'being very busy with looking busy to others, while doing nothing.' it was made up by a quite famous writer.

@ROBYNMARKOW

Жыл бұрын

That can describe a lot of people while at work..😅

I'm glad you brought up the concept of putting in fake words as a way to spot those copying their work at the end, because I immediately thought of how map makers will do that at the beginning of the video. Honestly, if the people making dictionaries were a bit more quick-witted, I imagine they could've covered half of these blunders by claiming these words were for that purpose

Talk of the long S in Samuel Johnson's Dictionary, a programme on BBC Four about the Dictionary accidentally revealed an unintentionally hysterical entry in the original 1755 edition. The camera was focused on a word lower down, but up above, the entry for "Pettitoes: _n_ . The feet of a [long S]ucking pig."

@sandradermark8463

Жыл бұрын

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 LMFAO

Paper towns and intentional ghost words undermine a source's reputation. Those sources are supposed to be reliable and trustworthy, but by putting in intentionally false information, it brings into question all of their information.

I'm reminded of Lewis Carroll's poem "Jabberwocky", with invented adjectives such as "frumious" and "tulgey". Then there are words from American cowboy slang such as "absquatulate" (which I believe means to steal) which were meant to sound as if they were of Latin or Greek origin, but which were inventions.

@sydhenderson6753

Жыл бұрын

Some of those made-up words enter the language, like Carroll's "snark" and Samuel Foote's grand Panjandrum (which became a World War II weapon which was a spectacular failure).

@bryanjackson8917

Жыл бұрын

@@sydhenderson6753 Speaking of words that came out of WWII, few people know that the word "fubar" is actually an acronym first used in radio communications that stands for Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition (or Repair) and that "snafu" was an acronym that stood for Situation Normal All Fucked Up!

@lizj5740

Жыл бұрын

@@bryanjackson8917 Why do you think that few would know the meanings of fubar and snafu? I would think anyone who had been in the military (at least, the U.S. military) would be au fait with those words.

@bryanjackson8917

Жыл бұрын

@@lizj5740 Military? Perhaps. Civilian? Very rare.

@nekotranslates

Жыл бұрын

@@bryanjackson8917 Gamer Geeks that play CoD and Battlefield be like: Yeah yeah, we are fubar

You could, therefore, legitimately play a false word in Scrabble, because it's in their dictionary. Cool 😎

@RichM3000

Жыл бұрын

William Shakespeare would have been the best ever Scrabble player. His made-up words are actual words.

@cadenceclearwater4340

Жыл бұрын

@@RichM3000 Scrabble, freestyle 😎

@Oturan20

Жыл бұрын

@@RichM3000 He'd have competition from F. Scotts Fitzgerald whose made-up words are also actual words.

@RichM3000

Жыл бұрын

@@Oturan20 True

@stevetournay6103

7 ай бұрын

My dad was forever trying that. Particularly spurious extensions. I remember him trying to sneak "reoozers" in, being multiple items that ooze more than once...🙄

The funny thing with "dord "is that I've only seen D used in high school. In post-secondary physics and chemistry, I've seen both ρ(rho) and λ(lambda) used in different cases

@JulieWallis1963

Жыл бұрын

Yeah! F@cking hysterical. Always has me rolling on the floor laughing.

@yahccs1

Жыл бұрын

It doesn't work in lower case letters. No difference between d and d. Density has always been ρ(rho) to me, usually with subscripts after it to say what it's the density of. λ(lambda) is usually wavelength, sometimes angle, perhaps. What about "P or p" for pressure or "M or m" for mass, (or magnitude of stars)? I think it would have made more sense if it had been written with the capital letter 2nd: p or P, d or D, m or M, then they are less likely to be mis-read as one word. t or T for time, T is also temperature.

@A_Baguette_

Жыл бұрын

@@yahccs1 Totally agree. I only have seen λ(lambda) used once for density, it was for linear density which was necessary when calculating center of mass

@bryanjackson8917

Жыл бұрын

Only a dork would think that "dord" was a real word.

@silkwesir1444

Жыл бұрын

Remember that it was a long time ago. Such conventions tend to change over time.

I can’t even imagine how difficult an editor’s job must have been when all manuscripts were handwritten. Love your channel. Take care! 🫶

@dmgroberts5471

Жыл бұрын

Not only that, but there were no standardized spellings until after the printing press was invented, so in addition to editing by hand, you also need to ask people if "wrygt" is meant to mean "right," "wight," "write," "rite," or "white."

One of my favourite ghost words in German is "telligent". I read it first as a German translation of a "User friendly" comic strip from 2005. It meant someone is telligent "if he has a serious lack of gorm" as a description of "gormless".

I have a problem with intentionally adding fake words to a dictionary. With maps, people are unlikely to try and get to a place that doesn’t exist. However, people do use dictionaries to learn new words they haven’t heard of previously, and it is entirely possible that they would start to use the fake word for real.

@dizzydaisy909

Жыл бұрын

How's that a problem? New words!

@douglascummings9837

Жыл бұрын

Ultimately all words are made up, so no problem, imo.

@PalKrammer

Жыл бұрын

Is there a word for adding fake words to a dictionary? Well, I’m creating one: wordfaking. Cool.

@robomonkey6219

Жыл бұрын

@@PalKrammer I believe the act of creating a word is called "coining"... so creating a fake word might be "counterfeit coining"

@DyreWolfBC

Жыл бұрын

In summary, dictionaries musn’t esquivale the perpetuation of fake words.

I had read somewhere that the word "hoodlum" came about as the result of a misspelling. It supposedly came from the surname "Muldoon", which was then reversed to "Noodlum". Someone mistook the "n" for an "h", and the rest is history.

@molybdomancer195

Жыл бұрын

The OED says the origin of hoodlum is lost but many stories have arisen trying to explain it.

@ontheroad5317

Жыл бұрын

I’ll bet that “nudloom” became “hoodlum” for the same reason a napron became an apron. A noodlum became an ‘oodlum.

@fduranthesee

Жыл бұрын

@@ontheroad5317 sounds like what's happening right now to "another" "that's another story" became "that's a whole 'nother story"

@bryanjackson8917

Жыл бұрын

Or perhaps you should say, "the rest is nistory"!

@bryanjackson8917

Жыл бұрын

@@fduranthesee Actually, the word "nother" (which can also be spelled as "'nother" with a glottal stop at the beginning) is a legitimate word in the dictionary, often used in informal speech or prose, and comes from the word "other", not "another". How that came to be is, of course, a whole 'nother story.

The best transcription error that ive seen, countless times, is in British censuses when doing family history research. In rural areas a lot of people are listed, in modern transcriptions, as "daisy farmer" instead of "dairy farmer" - a combination of misreading handwriting and ignorance of "country ways".

I only found it a month or so ago but I have come to love this quirky little channel. There have been times in which I am absolutely enthralled with the wacky information Rob has to share. Love it 👏

I love how you find all those oddities in the English language. I would call you a language detective! Well done so far, keep up the good work! 👍🙂

Rob, you're the "word" equivalent to Brian Cox, absolutely so enjoyable to listen to

I invented the word "viff" as a kid as my word for a "question mark". 40+ years later, I still call it a viff. For me, a perfectly valid word I use naturally but confuse the heck out of everyone else.

@KECOG

11 ай бұрын

My father and I invented the word "Squeegee" (soft G, not the hard one) to mean Milkshake; it was a discussion we had where he illustrated that words are merely symbols that are agreed upon to have a certain meaning. I love your word Viff! :)

@talastra

3 ай бұрын

Viss feemf perfectly lufid to me af a word.

@AndrewAMartin

Ай бұрын

Harrier jet pilots use VIFF, an acronym for Vector In Free Flight. The Harrier uses ducts to direct (or vector) the thrust of the engines downward in order to take off or land vertically; pilots would turn the ducts during flight as a way to maneuver in ways not normal for an aircraft, or beyond what its control surfaces would normally allow. Moving the ducts is called VIFFing...

"They cracked the... morse code, if you will." Beautiful, it had to be done. Thank you for all that I continue to learn from your videos!

@ender5312

8 ай бұрын

-..- -.-. -.. ..-

It's so ironic that his second name is Word, because he knows so much about words. (I didn't know what else to write.) I just love Rob's videos. I certainly created my share of ghost words. I am dyslexic.

@nataliebutler

Жыл бұрын

Maybe it's not his surname but a channel name..

@notwithouttext

Жыл бұрын

@@nataliebutler it's WATTS

@RUBBER_BULLET

Жыл бұрын

Nominative determinism.

@hananabanana7955

Жыл бұрын

@@notwithouttext Rob WATTS? How do you even go about doing that?

@notwithouttext

Жыл бұрын

@@hananabanana7955 look at the about page

I love these ghost words. They remind me that I may not necessarily have complete monopoly over my epic spleling!

@bryanjackson8917

Жыл бұрын

Don't worry too much about it, as one of the most commonly misspelled words is "misspell".

The clock is running out, but a video on the origin of actual ghostly, ghoulish and spooky words would be both timely and phantasmagorical.

@richardnedbalek1968

Жыл бұрын

Yes, Rob, please! 🎃

@alonsoACR

Жыл бұрын

Or rather... timely and _phantomnational_

@richardtofield5210

10 ай бұрын

i think 'gibberish' comes from shakespeare where he describes ghosts of dead romans who 'squeak and gibber'

I would love to know more about words in the English language that have completely disappeared from use in VERY recent history (kind of like talking to gen z about fax machines). For example I recently saw a menu from the 1960s spelt ‘menue’. I also found out that until recently female ushers would be called ‘usherettes’ which I find completely mind blowing. Might be a bit niche but I just find the sudden death of words/ spellings, and the reasons why they die, really interesting!

@patrickmurphy3048

11 ай бұрын

There are many languages that are dying when their last speakers die. Let us take some of their nicest words and adopt them into English as a lifeboat, to preserve them.

@viddork

10 ай бұрын

Wait until you find out what the Disney artists called the female centaurs in _Fantasia._

@ragnkja

7 ай бұрын

@@viddork Presumably either centaurides or centauresses, since those are the classical terms.

I really enjoyed your videos...I love how you make learning about why things are spelled/pronounced the way they are fun.

"There's more of gravy than of grave in you...whatever you are." -Ebenezer Scrooge, trying to convince himself he is imagining Marley's ghost

@DawnDavidson

Жыл бұрын

Hahah. Exactly my thought!

@richardnedbalek1968

Жыл бұрын

So when we speak ghost words to actual ghosts, they’ll be sure to understand us, right?!?! 😂

This isn't a dictionary definition but pyggy was a type of clay used to make containers and someone interpreted "pyggy bank" as piggy bank and made a pig shaped coin holder

The “foupe” mistake could have another impact on modern English (or American English) slang. If “soupe” was the intended word, and meant accelerating impetuously, it is probably the source of the term “souped-up”, meaning mechanically enhanced to go faster. Great channel! I’ve just finished watching three of your videos in a row, and subscribed immediately. 👍🏻

I often watch your videos last thing at night, Rob, because they put me in such a good mood - but I guess that I won´t get my usual beauty sleep tonight as I will probably be dreaming instead of green-like ghost words invading my head. All the same, great job (as usual) !

The whole Latin to German / Caesar to Kaiser transition would be fun to learn!

@reinhardtreinsch2923

Жыл бұрын

Well in Latin "C" is spoken like a "K" in English. And the rest is hardly changed anyway 😁

Your vlogs are so informative, thank you. They also gave me quite a chuckle!

Ghost or not, esquivalience just got added to my list of indispensable words. How did I ever manage without it? Thanks, Rob.

@DyreWolfBC

Жыл бұрын

I was also thinking I rather liked esquivalience as well. Dictionaries shouldn’t esquivale by allowing this to remain a ghost word.

@bryanjackson8917

Жыл бұрын

The funny thing is, I have occasionally heard the word "esquivalience" used in more formal settings, and if you ask what that means you will usually be told to "look it up in a dictionary" where, of course, it doesn't exist (well not as a legitimate word anyways). Even funnier still is that many online dictionaries have unwittingly picked it up as if were really a legitimate word!

@drewdabbs418

29 күн бұрын

Surely it exists as a word. Just because it has an unconventional creation doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Grané is hilarious! Every one of these is hilarious. Thank you for these videos!

Sometimes non existing words are able to cross the boundaries into the world of the existing words. In German we have the word Lappalie, wich was invented by students some hundred years ago. It comes from the word Läppchen and was used so frequently that it is now use as if it where a synonym to Kleinigkeit.

The OED has several of these ghost words in it but usually indicates their status. A good clue is that they don’t (probably can’t) give any examples of usage outside of other dictionaries

Excellent!! Love all of your videos. They're so interesting.

Your words on words are always delightful, even when they are "spooky." Such tricks are not limited to dictionaries, whether inadvertently or purposely included. In my distant past I did typesetting for an appraisers' association. Part of their income was generated by selling mailing lists aimed at the various genre appraised. In order to spot illegal usage of address information garnered from its membership directory, some people listed as experts in various fields were shills. I was a book "expert." My "job" was to inform the association when I received any mailings regarding book appraising. They could compare the sender's information with known purchasers of their mailing lists, looking for illegal users of the information. The "book appraiser" was not too much of a stretch, as I did, and still do, collect books by one particular author, having several hundred various American editions of his 81 published titles. So I do know something about books, though it's a very specialized niche.

The intro clued me in to the (to me) unnecessary "disorientated". Disoriented is really quite sufficient. 🙂

@ragnkja

Жыл бұрын

“Irritate” used to be “irrite”.

@zweigackroyd7301

Жыл бұрын

@@ragnkja I will editate my comment.

I appreciate your low key presentation. So much of KZread is frenetic, so much of the world is frenetic, it’s refreshing.

Your videos are a pleasure to watch. You have such a mellow & happy vibe, clearly love what you do. 😎👍

But then again, the word “foupe” has made it into my lexicon in the intentional malaprop “In one swell foop!”

While looking up "esquivalience" I discovered "Mountweasel" and sundry other types of fictitious entries/words. Great topic. I wondered if you would discuss the story of "floccinaucinihilipilification", but no matter. Great series!

It's nice that back in the old days, when life was a supreme challenge, there were still people who cared about preservation and documentation of languages.

Just found you you tube channel , via you tube shorts: your channel is beyond Epic! Absolutely brilliant, to be sure!

Well, logically if "remorse" was a root word with a prefix, then "morse" meaning the feeling of guilt or regret BEFORE a grievous act, then it would have made sense in the context given. Just saying.

@bryanjackson8917

Жыл бұрын

Not all words with prefixes have a root word (i.e., a word that can stand alone on its own) to which a prefix is simply added, and many examples of such words abound: abyss, antecedent, contradict, companion, exhale, intervene, macrocosm, omniscient, triathlon, etc., etc., etc. IOW, the use of prefixes is a rather sublime subject!

@Ithirahad

Жыл бұрын

@@bryanjackson8917 There is such a word as 'cede' (i.e. give something up to another entity), but alas... yes, the rest are missing. We can dictATE but not dict (we just say), We can exhale but can't *hale We can intervene but not *vene (we just "come" instead) A *cosm' on its own is a 'cosmos' for whatever reason, We have science but can't be *scient (we have the word 'aware' for that), and of course Athlon is trademarked. :P ...And I have no idea what's even going on with the word 'company'. (It sounds like it comes from something about sharing bread, which we Germanic-speakers don't call pan, but I have no clue...)

@MarcusCactus

Жыл бұрын

@@bryanjackson8917 Most of those words are borrowed from French or Latin, where the root exists by itself.

@bryanjackson8917

Жыл бұрын

@@MarcusCactus It doesn't matter what language the root word was borrowed from, in this analysis it only matters how those root words are treated within the English language. And the fact of the matter is that there exists no stand-alone "root word" for many words in English that begin with a prefix, and that was the whole point I was making in my comment. In addition, note that while I only listed a few such a words, a more comprehensive list would likely stretch into the hundreds if not thousands of examples of such words.

I like the idea of a paper town in a dictionary. Is that a "paper word"?

@elderscrollsswimmer4833

Жыл бұрын

A town exporting paper and most of the residents work in the paper mill?

@austinsontv

Жыл бұрын

A town with tensions so high betwixt its residents, it could be torn apart as easily as paper.

Your channel is soo interesting! Keep it up.

Thank you so much; this was delightful!

"Sorry it was the Moops" "It's 'Moors'!" "Sorry, the card says 'Moops'". "It's a typo!!!!!"

I am anaspeptic, phrasmodic, even compunctious that ghost words have caused such pericombobulation.

Love it. Very well done. Many thanks.

Thank you very much for the explanation of "gravy". I always wondered what would be so tombful about such sauce, or why we should consider its heavy gravitas.

Just in terms of the way it sounds, "esquivalience" reminds me of the esquilax: a fantastical horse with the head of a rabbit, and the body of a rabbit.

@ownpetard8379

Жыл бұрын

And neck of a horse?

@christinae30

Жыл бұрын

🤣🤣🤣 Oh, I never heard of that animal, but it makes so perfect s e n s e /ROTFL/

As usual, Rob, you serve up a delightful melange, olio and/or plain 'soupe' of humour and information. Thankyou for brightening my morning, eh ... ... no, that's not a question, 'eh' is the Canadian shibboleth

@RobWords

Жыл бұрын

And a charming shibboleth it is!

Thank you for embiggening my knowledge!

I how love the dord of information you can fit in your videos while staying equally entertaining

I'm reminded of the comedy sketch Gerald the Gorilla (from Not the Nine O'Clock News) and they used the word Flange to refer to a group of gorillas, however this wasn't the correct word (troop or band is accepted); but since then it has been picked up in the scientific literature and is now a valid way to refer to a group of gorillas. Learnt this on QI.

@stonestreaker

Жыл бұрын

Even stranger is the fact that it's a flange of baboons, not gorillas.

I’m new to your channel and find it extremely interesting as an American English speaker learning German in Vienna. It appears the channel is somewhat new? I truly hope you continue to make videos on many different language topics that fall under the umbrella of how closely related they are all in some shape or form. Really great content and really appreciate your delivery in the videos. Bravo.

@rahb1

Жыл бұрын

Good luck to you in learning a little more about REAL English, and how Noah Webster really stuffed it up by making 'US English' even more inconsistent and illogical.

@thomasspool

Жыл бұрын

@@rahb1 I’m so confused by your comment. What are you going on about?

@rahb1

Жыл бұрын

@@thomasspool Enjoy learning German. It is the only Western language I know of which has consistent spelling and pronunciation! It will also really help your understanding of English root words.

@thomasspool

Жыл бұрын

In regards to your frustration with Webster, I would say, history repeats itself. Things change, man. Hence the channel…

@rahb1

Жыл бұрын

@@thomasspool Yes, THIS channel, showing you how words and spelling are done in REAL English, before it was fucked up by Noah Webster.

Rob, here's a video idea. Words with both countable and uncountable plurals. Fish, deer, alcohol, etc.

Rob, my good man, you make an already-fascinating subject even more enjoyable!

This has been something of a contrafibularity amongst the community of dictionary editors.

@robomonkey6219

Жыл бұрын

😁 Love the Blackadder reference!

Ever since reading Paper Towns by John Green, which is named for the copyright traps cartographers add to maps, I have wondered how many copyright traps get added to dictionaries and how often they turn up in games of scrabble or trivia questions and the like, where people seek out obscure words to use intentionally. And then from there, how often do they become real words with real usage, in the same way that fake towns sometimes become real towns as people decide to actually settle there anyway.

As a English learner, I learned with this video that ‘syllabus’ and ‘syllable’ have no connection. Fascinating.

Great video! Unrelated, but if you are looking for topics, it might be interesting to look at the etymology behind "farm animal words" like words differentiating between sexes of different farm animals, whether they are intact or not, etc. There are quite a few of them, obviously stemming from an agricultural heritage.

In one German dictionary you can find a Steinlaus (stone louse). It was in memory of a sketch about this stone eating animal.

@pierrefley5000

Жыл бұрын

Oh, I know that one! It's from a medical dictionary, the Pschyrembel. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pschyrembel_Klinisches_W%C3%B6rterbuch for more information.

@svenlima

5 ай бұрын

You forgot to mention how it found its way into the dictionary. It was a joke by a typographer who sneaked that word into the dictionary. Although it has been detected decades ago it's still in there because the buyers find it funny.

Please don't change a thing about the way you do your videos. They are delightful!

Linguist here - I've been very impressed with your work. Thank you, very well done

I love this channel! ❤

Rob, would the word 'unword' as used in Orwell's 1984 be a real word?

@davidlloyd3116

Жыл бұрын

Sorry don’t have Telegram

Did Jodrell also give us "lovingkindness" or "redbrick"?

😂😂👻👻 another great , goofy, entertaining and packed with knowledge video.

I love your channel. I have had to write so many syllabuses!!!!!

In his time, Cicero's name would have been pronounced Kikero.

And here I thought tweed got its name because it was something the infamous Tammany Hall boss wore all the time. As for syllabus, I thought it was pretty obvious that it came from syllable and a combination of many and Rose from there. The actual meaning is a perfect reason why everyone should remember to cross their T's. Maybe the original printer didn't. He was guilty of esquivalience. :-) Edit, oh boy! My tablet didn't auto correct that! It's still a word!

Ah brilliant! Your research is impressastounding!

This was a good video. Keep up the good work.