Please leave your own weird and wonderful words below! And remember that the first 500 people to use my link will receive a one month free trial of Skillshare: skl.sh/robwords12231

@duncankilburn7612

5 ай бұрын

Fave words from Physics are Indistinguishabililty (English) & die Umklappprosessor (German)

@the_multus

5 ай бұрын

Philobrutish seems to be pejorative

@arielog1941

5 ай бұрын

All time favorite find in the dictionary as a wee one: cuperoid - fossilized turd or scat Not sure of the spelling, I mean that was at least 65 yrs ago.

@GermanSausagesAreTheWurst

5 ай бұрын

It's a relatively well-known word. but considering recent news about the Church Of England, we may for the first time ever, actually get to use in spontaneous conversation the word "antidisestablishmentarianism" without the subject of the conversation being about long words.

@eriktempelman2097

5 ай бұрын

Favourite German word: ELFENBEINKÜSTE It's their word for the country Côte d'Ivoire. "Elfenbein", or literally "Bone of Elves", is German for Ivory.

You know you're up a few levels when Susie Dent makes an appearance on your channel

@ezaxis

5 ай бұрын

Yes, but when is Rob going to show up in Dictionary Corner?

@equolizer

5 ай бұрын

I mean Rob is a news presenter for DW and also works for the BBC besides being a KZreadr. I don't think it too far-fetched that especially his work for the BBC helped him get into contact with Susie Dent.

@JacobGrippenMusic

5 ай бұрын

Yeap

@michaelkelleypoetry

5 ай бұрын

As an American I hadn't heard of Susie Dent until this Rob Words video.

@monishbiswas1966

5 ай бұрын

@@michaelkelleypoetryshe’s an institution here in England.

As a service engineer for a German brand of domestic appliances, I often discuss the phenomenon described by 'vorführeffekt' with my customers. I'm thrilled to now have an appropriate word for it.

@richardward8578

5 ай бұрын

As someone who started his career as an electronics technician, when a device worked for us but not the customer, it was due to "technician's aura". We just had to be near enough. If the customer was rude, unpleasant, or simply clueless, then the problem was "Operator Head Space," meaning there is nothing in the region between the customer's ears.

@eddiehawkins7049

5 ай бұрын

I'm an ex service engineer and so wish that I had known this word during my decades on the road. I used to tell my customers that all equipment is fitted with an engineer proximity switch and that it behaves when this is activated.

@eddiehawkins7049

5 ай бұрын

@@richardward8578 I wrote my offering before having read your's, but it does remind me that we developed an ability to recognise various different types of customers, very early into the fault finding process. Some we were generous to, others we made suffer. Never upset the person you are hoping will cure your problems.

@altosanon

5 ай бұрын

Yes I used to work in IT support and part of every day was assuring users that it happens all the time, shame I didn't know the word

@rogink

5 ай бұрын

Have you tried turning it off then on again?

♥ Susie Dent is so amazing. What a fantastic collaboration!

More with Susie please! Magnificent combo!

@eddiehawkins7049

5 ай бұрын

Seconded

I love how many of these words -- thunderplump and shotclog -- have the same echoing vowels in the syllables. Somehow it makes them more fun to say.

@allendracabal0819

5 ай бұрын

What a bunch of claptrap! (Just kidding, of course.)

@jcortese3300

5 ай бұрын

@@allendracabal0819 Hogwash! 🤣

@jjsmith3302

5 ай бұрын

😂 balderdash, I say!

Well Rob, I am bursting with such confelicity at the sight of you being star struck with Ms. Dent :D :D (She is wonderful) On a different note, I was teaching clothes vocabulary to my ESL students recently, and realised that most countries used a variation of "pants" (As apposed to trousers), the french being pantalon, and the Spanish being pantalones etc. I researched the origin of the word trousers and to my surprise, I found it it originates from the Irish Gaelic language! Would it be an idea to do a video on Irish or Scottish terms that have suruved in the modern day English vocab? All the best! :)

@nickmoloney9820

5 ай бұрын

Brilliant! I was thinking when gormless came up , the definition is old English gorm being care but in Irish it is the word for the colour blue, and we say we have the blues.

@Markle2k

2 ай бұрын

"Trusser" is the Danish word for panties/knickers, in particular, the high-waisted kind. Trousers/pants is "bukser". It is shortened from bukhosen, I guess lederhosen, because the "buk" is the animal that gave up its skin. Now, they are of any material. "Benklæder" is what you call something that partially or completely covers the legs (ben); pants, shorts, boxer-briefs. "Klæder" is the fancy/formal (plural) word for clothes or the fabric they are made from. And so, it shows up in advertising.

Cacafuego is what you get a few hours after eating something very spicy.

@BenjiSun

4 күн бұрын

After eating a few bags of Takis Fuego, i got the cacafuego. 💥💥

In German, we have the saying "Schuster, bleib bei deinen Leisten!" (= "Shoemaker, stick with your shoe lasts!" (shoe last = a shoemaker's tool)), which is used to tell someone off for criticizing or lecturing someone on a topic the critic doesn't really know about. Sometimes it is also used for people who make bad attempts at performing tasks they aren't trained for and they haven't been asked to do. Having now heard that story behind the "ultracrepidarian" word, I wonder whether that saying originates from the same story. I always wondered why the saying specifically singles out a shoemaker when it could really be any other craftsman, it's not like shoemakers had a particular reputation for overestimating themselves.

@jakethesnake95

5 ай бұрын

Spanish has nearly the same expression: "¡Zapatero, a tus zapatos!" ("Shoemaker, [pay attention] to your shoes!")

@keyem4504

5 ай бұрын

In fact it does. It's based on the Latin saying "Ne sutor ultra crepidam!" Or "Ne supra crepidam sutor!" Which stems from that anecdote.

@toomanyopinions8353

5 ай бұрын

Yeah, I'm almost certain it's the same origin.

@John.Mann.1941

5 ай бұрын

But the cobbler should stick to his last. I’ve known that expression since childhood.

@davidlloyd7597

2 ай бұрын

I seem to remember that Spanish has a very similar expression which translates as shoemaker to his shoes and means mind your own business. I remember it from a book so all the details may not be correct on this

I genuinely found an excuse to use the word thunderplump in a job interview. I work in education and was asked about how I see my role. I talked about finding joy in knowledge for its own sake, and love the fact that the word thunderplump exists.

@allendracabal0819

5 ай бұрын

*role (I am only correcting because it's a wordie channel.)

@helenbaumander3953

5 ай бұрын

Still not the right time to do it.@@allendracabal0819

Susie is great, so passionate and knowledgeable, but humble and extremely nice.

This is one of the best recordings. Being American and 76 I have been using Twitterpated since I was a little girl.

@justinsommerfeld7027

5 ай бұрын

I associate Twitterpated with Bambi!

As to "bubber", remember that "plate" in those days meant silver. Not just a flat piece of tableware, but actually silverware.

@gownerjones1450

5 ай бұрын

It is interesting that this has been lost with the modern definition. Really, a bubber could just as well have been someone who emptied the pub's register then, right?

@kellydalstok8900

5 ай бұрын

Plates in an alehouse were more likely pewter.

@davidlloyd7597

2 ай бұрын

So silverware. That makes more sense

Confelicity is something I experience all of the time. It is great to know there is a word for my emotion. I do what I can to spread happiness. A lot of compliments are given and jokes are made.

@rogink

5 ай бұрын

I agree but as one also experiences it a lot as part of the volunteer work I do, I've never thought of needing to give it a name.

Rob your absolute and unapologetic joy here is beautiful my friend! Word nerds unite 🎉

I adore Susie Dent. She’s on a few British television shows that are also broadcast here in Australia. I think she has been a guest on No Such Thing as a Fish too.

My favourite word is 'scumfish'. It means to overheat,overcrowd and suffocate. "I have to get out, I'm scumfished!" "The packed metro was scumfishing!" "The kids will scumfish in the car without air-conditioning,"... We did, with our legs sticking to the claggy, black vinyl seats. 'Claggy' is good word, too.

LOVE these words! I've suffered from the Vorfuehreffekt many times, and been thunderplumped not a few, but I will respair, thanks to the contagious confelicity I get from this video. Good point also about a certain renaming freeing up a whole lot of lovely words - I'm all of a twitter!

In the US we all it "the Irish goodbye". My dad was 100% irish and said there are two irish goodbyes. One where you just dip out wordlessly, and one where you stand by the door hurredly talking for 3 hours with your coat on.

@kjdude8765

5 ай бұрын

We call the second definition the Midwestern Goodbye here in the Midwest US. I'm sure the phenomenon occurs every where. We get the Irish Twins reference here: 2 kids born within a year.

@carolinaroot3492

5 ай бұрын

😂 cracks me up 😂 I’ve been known to slip out quietly…didn’t know it was an Irish thing!

I am confelicitatious in your joy of having Susie on the show

I wonder if in a modern sense "bubber" could be expanded to refer to someone who steals towels from hotels, or even loads up on napkins and condiments from restaurants.

The sheer joy on your face throughout is just a pleasure 😊

There is actually a German word for confelicity: Mitfreude. It's very rarely used but pretty much just like confelicity, it literally translates to with-joy or with-happiness. There's also the far more commonly used and similarly constructed Mitleid (with-sorrow) which means pity.

@ileana8360

5 ай бұрын

I thought of that, because of ´Mitleid´, but wasn´t sure if ´Mitfreude´really exists. With regard to Mitleid: it is more than pity as it includes ´Leiden´therefore implies a more in depth feeling than just ´mitleidig´.

@patrickm3981

5 ай бұрын

There is not only 'Mitleid' that is similarly constructed but also 'Mitgefühl' (with-feeling) which means 'compassion'.

@gownerjones1450

5 ай бұрын

That word is very very rare, indeed, but we do express the sentiment with a little sentence like "ich freue mich für dich" which means "I'm happy for you." Or, when someone experiences suffering, "ich fühle mit dir," which literally translates to "I am feeling with you," but more accurately, "I feel for you."

@TheRagnartheBold

5 ай бұрын

@@gownerjones1450 The verb "sich mitfreuen" is more often used.

@gownerjones1450

5 ай бұрын

@@TheRagnartheBold I've never heard anyone use that word in a sentence in my life.

Thunderplump is an interesting word for the English language. In Portuguese, at least in my Rio dialect from Brazil, if I were to describe a sudden storm that soaks you in seconds, I'd use the term "tromba d'água" or "water trunk", which is technically translated to "waterspout" and it's a specific meteorological event, but in informal speech it is about these sudden Summer rains where a lot of water pours down out of nowhere

@gabitamiravideos

5 ай бұрын

And in Spanish we say “Palo de agua”…

@Tokru86

5 ай бұрын

In German we have "Wolkenbruch" for that. It literally means "the clouds break apart" and unleash all their water at once.

@John.Mann.1941

5 ай бұрын

@@Tokru86There’s a similar expression in English - cloud bust. Roughly it means a sudden and heavy downpour.

@GreenThingonTV

4 ай бұрын

We use the term Gully Wash here in the American South.

I'm a non-native speaker of English, but I study English by myself. I discovered your videos very recently and they do capture my attention.

I'm a retired computer consultant. One of our standard phrases is "Works fine for me."

My wife is definitely a scurryfunger, especially when her mother is coming to visit, and then they followed it with ultracrepidarian and I thought “bugger it, that’s me!”

@gownerjones1450

5 ай бұрын

I turn into a scurryfunger every time the annual fire alarm inspection rolls around. I don't want to cause anyone else to feel Fremdscham after all.

Great promotion! Just ordered Susie's book.

@RobWords

5 ай бұрын

You won't regret it

Immediately noting these down for use in general conversation 😁. Great to see you and Susie in an episode together!

I am going to start using respair this spring. As someone who suffers from depression (SAD)is have needed a word to describe being in the upswing... I am no longer in despair, I do not yet qualify as "HAPPY" but I am in Respair. It is a perfect way to help people understand I am not "all good" but I am getting there. Just need to clean up some emotional residue before I am ready for joy.

Suzie really is extraordinarily knowledgeable. Love this video!

In programming we have a term for a bug that when you observe it you cannot reproduce it; a Heisenbug, named after the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

My favorite pub related word, is "schapsidee"... of ideas that could only have come about down the pub! 🙂

What a lovely person Susie Dent is.

"Confelicity" puts me in mind of the Pāli term "Muditā." It's usually translated as "sympathetic or vicarious joy."

Fremdschämen is often also used as an insult. It doesn't just mean that you're embarrassed for someone else along with the sentiment "thank god it wasn't me," but it also almost always carries with it a distinct note of "what a fool you are to embarrass yourself like that."

@gownerjones1450

5 ай бұрын

For example, someone might do a dance they think they are good at, but really everyone thinks they suck at it. You might tell that person that they are causing you to experience Fremdschämen as a way of telling them they suck. Many German words carry with them an air of judgment. That probably reflects a less pleasant part of our culture in a way. But hey, when something goes wrong and you're told that you're causing Fremdschämen, you can always blame it on the Vorführeffekt!

Love Susie Dent! So glad you got to speak to her

Slight addition: Vorführeffekt is usually used the opposite way by engineers. You worked a month on something (a product or a new software feature), and even though you tested it 100 times and it always worked stable, just during the big presentation, it won't work at all. "Tja, Vorführeffekt!", is what you will say to everybody in the understanding audience, and brush it off, without big embarrassment. I have never heard it in the opposite way as Susie Dent explained it, but that doesn't mean that it isn't used that way (being an engineer....)

I’m an American, but a huge Cats fan. Super stoked to see Susie on RobWords!

Loved the ultracrepidarian….. we have a saying in Milanese that express the very same concept but this is in a single, and Latinism nevertheless, word. Bravi! (Yeah, it’s the correct way to say “both of you”).

Love how @RobWords looks slightly besotted and bashful during the video chat with Susie 😍😍😍😍😍😍 - another great video!

@danpreston564

5 ай бұрын

Aren’t we all?

Susie Dent- what a legend! Love this channel.

Please make this a regular series.. you are both great and amazing together!

Susie always makes me smile

Thank you for the great video! It is entertaining and very informative. As a native german speaker I was impressed by Susie Dent's pronounciation skills. I'd just like to add the information that 'Vorführeffekt' has a glottal stop between the two parts of the word. Vorführ...Effekt. Keep up the good work, cheers.

@missharry5727

5 ай бұрын

I tried saying it without a global stop and it didn't work - I'm reading with subtitles not sound and I'm sure it would have jarred.

awesome to listen to two knowledgeable people talking about our language. Have Susie on again please!

Confelicity, Respair... Absolutely wonderful words. Thank you for sharing.

One of my favourites is poodlefaker. I read it in an older book of words and their meanings and besides just liking the sound of it, the definition in this book was wonderfully specific, It said - a poodlefaker is a gentleman that prefers the company of ladies at ladies tea parties. I love it ❤

I've been in love with Suzie since forever. Her passion for and love of languages has been nothing short of inspirational. The Sassenachs struck gold with her. I would absolutely love to confabulate with Suzie D. 😉

Dear Rob, One neat book is The Little Books of Lost Words by Joe Gillard (Ten Speed Press, 2019) Here are some of my favorites: Sonntagsleerung (German, noun, the low spirits or emptiness one feels on Sundays before the work work begins) early 20th century, medical. Apophenia: The tendency or experience of seeing patterns or connections between random, unrelated or meaningless data. Coined by a German psychiatrist, Klaus Conrad, in the mid-20th century. Desipience Foolish trifling, silliness, relaxed dallying in the enjoyment of foolish trifles. Adj. desipient mid-17th century Dolorifuge Something that vanishes or lessens grief or sorrow 19th century from dolor (grief/sorrow) from Middle English and Latin and fugare (Latin, to put to flight) Karoshi A loanword from the Japanese meaning death from overwork or job-related exhaustion. In Japanese, karo-shi literally means "overwork death." Came into use in the work-obsessed and consumerist 1980's. Lalochezia Emotional relief gained by using indecent or vulgar language. How you feel after using curse words! 20th century origin Another word books I have and enjoy is Endangered Words: A Collection of Rare Gems for Book Lovers by Simon Hertnon (2009) maffick (verb, to celebrate in an rowdy, extravagant manner) prandicle (noun, 17th century, a small meal) slugabed (16th century, noun, one who sleeps in later than is appropriate)

@londongael414

5 ай бұрын

These are great! I've heard "slugabed" in use.

@missharry5727

5 ай бұрын

Maffick I know: to celebrate a victory rowdily, derived from the history of the relief of the siege of Mafehking in the Boer war. Prandicle is obviously from a Latin prandiculum, a diminutive of prandium which means lunch probably invented as a joke by a former public schoolboy turned vicar.

a synonym for confelicity is compersion

Gosh, Susie is really captivating, so good to see her up close. Great video, both. Thank you.

Super exciting-what a collab!! Haven't even started watching yet, had to comment straight away!! 😀😀

Loved this. Please, please do another with the amazing episode Susie Dent!

I hadn't heard of confelicity, but polyamorous people often use the word compersion to describe a similar concept, which is more taking joy in the joy that your partner experiences when with another of their partners.

Thank you for having Susie Dent, and mentioning her book. Her book was a perfect gift for two of my friends.

I like that the word at 7:15 is as descriptive as the german Platzregen. Not starting slowly, but one flash and you are wet...

I loved this SO much!! Thank you both! ❤

Brilliant stuff Rob. I was overcome with confelicity watching you chat with Susie.

Your channel is simply a breath of fresh air 🥰 No one else understands my love of linguistics, and this video was among your best yet. Long-time fan, loved “confelicity” so much I had to call my sister and tell her about it so someone else knows it too 😂 Since it just rained outside, my contribution to underused words is “petrichor” 😇

@joepitt1192

4 ай бұрын

Check out the podcast Something Rhymes with Purple with Susie D and Gyles Brandreth.

My friends & I were definitely bubbers in college, only we stole dinnerware from the cafeteria instead of an alehouse. Lol Respair is beautiful & I want it to make a comeback. And thunderplump is so fun & my favorite kind of rain. ❤️

@donnaj9964

5 ай бұрын

I used to know someone who would go to a diner and make off with the salt and pepper shakers. Sheesh...

your programme and all it involves is so good , makes me smile and improves my day

Great stuff! I don't see enough of these, but it's hard work, and I appreciate it!

Susie Dent is just so lovely. Great video!

It's always nice to see the lovely Susie.

Can you imagine Rob and Susie dominating word party games. If they're on the same team, we're all just going to quit! 🤣

Positively gobsmacked! As someone without any idea about British quiz shows, I never heard of the woman until your previous video; but she really is such a genius! Thanks, Rob! (And I finally found out that you're a presenter for DW when I caught you in one news vid!!)

I have lived in England, Canada and now Australia. Here are some words I have met along the way: collywobbles, drongo, wakkas, two four, gitch.

I love your channel. This was an especially fun episode! Learning new and unusual words is great fun. Thank you!

English being a Germanic language, I constantly see similarities between English and German. Language, after all, is born of culture. This was a wonderful smattering of new words I think I should starting using. ❤️

@gownerjones1450

5 ай бұрын

And historically, as far as I understand, English is the result of the mixture of the French (or Frankish), Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian cultures, all of whom, at one time or another, fought over the island we now call Great Britain. Truly fascinating stuff. You still see it reflected in the language today. Compared to German, English has a hell of a lot more French loanwords, and words as fundamental as the pronouns themselves were shaped by Old Norse. English remains a Germanic language probably because the Anglo-Saxons eventually won most of the land on the island. Fun fact: During the very early days, the Angles and the Saxons were separate cultural groups that fought over what we now call England. The Angles won, which is why it's called Angle-Land -> Angland -> England today. Had the Saxons won, we might as well know that country as Sexland today, as we do with place names in England like Middlesex or Essex.

Just my favourite KZread channel and so pleased to see the Empress of Eloquence here again. Brilliant!

Delightful video - and you could see how excited Rob was because he was grinning from ear to ear throughout 😂

What a lovely video. Thoroughly enjoyed it!!!

Loved confelicity and respair; need to find times to start using them.

An extra strength edition of RobWords’ always delightful content!

Listening to you two chat just makes me happy. Giddy with confelicity, you might say :)

In computing, a similar thing to the Vorfuehreffekt is a Heisenbug -- a program bug that goes away when you're trying to investigate it.

Cacafuego was also used as the name of a Spanish ship in the series of books so skillfully written by Patrick O‘Brian

@justayoutuber1906

5 ай бұрын

Its also what you get after eating spicy curry

@londongael414

5 ай бұрын

I THOUGHT I'd seen it somewhere...thanks! Anyone know a good word for that feeling of satisfaction you get when you can finally account for that vague feeling of recognition?

@attilajuhasz2526

5 ай бұрын

​@@londongael414"Validation" perhaps.

@EdwinHofstra

5 ай бұрын

​@@londongael414Aha-erlebnis?

@londongael414

5 ай бұрын

@@EdwinHofstra I like that! Cheers!

We used “tosspot” as an insult among my group of friends during high school in North Queensland. I haven’t heard it since then and was quite surprised it came up in this video. Now I know what it actually means!

@utha2665

5 ай бұрын

Haha, we used it here in WA too, or maybe when I was living in Townsville for a few years back in the mid to late 80s? I can't be sure now. I wonder if tosser is a derivative of tosspot?

I love how you explain how you don't know the word "ultracrepidarian" and then immediately smash cut to you explaining the history of its usage in great detail.

I really like the idea of words that sound like the complete opposite of what they mean. Great video!!

As a small boy in South Yorkshire in the 60s and early 70s, it was common to hear someone talking about "snecking" the door, or putting the sneck on when you close the door fully, so the latch clicks into the hole in the door frame.

❤ Thank you Rob and Suzie for another very interesting video. x

I am proud to say I have bubbered my favorite drinking glass! Dutch and all that.

@graceygrumble

5 ай бұрын

Ha! The Dutch tend to make particularly pleasing beer glasses. I always used to ask if I could buy a glass, if I liked it. I usually ended up getting it for free, or for a couple of quid. But, many of my friends were bubbers, when we were young.

About the Fohrführeffekt, that thing when your computer worked perfectly fine when you had brought it in for repairs. We had a British made piece of equipment at work a long time ago, and it acted funny. It had to do with bending tubes, for hydraulics. So we brought a technician over to Sweden, from Britain, to fix it. But as soon as he arrived, the equipment stopped acting funny. But he knew what this was, so he declared this needed "the sock solution"! He would leave one of his socks in the equipment, so it would feel his smell, and think the repairman was still around, and thus not act funny. And so he did, and it worked. And now I have that expression in my vocabulary, "the sock solution"! 🙂

Thank you. That was delightful.

LOVE the outtakes!! “Snotty KZreadr” LOL!!!🤣🤣 I remember twitterpated an occasionally use it, and cannot wait to try the others!

I always learn a lot about language with your videos and your attitude is always magnificent in these videos!

Susie Dent is awesome and your vids are always entertaining. Keep up the good work.

Please do keep this up, it is very entertaining. Thank god I have subscribben to this channel! Edit: Irish exit? Never heard of that one. What about taking French leave? I believe the French call it "filer à l'anglaise". Oh, and what's more: on a channel like this, the comments from viewers are equally entertaining and enlightening.

@gownerjones1450

5 ай бұрын

The word "subscribben" is not a real word but by god, I wish it were.

There were all great. I thoroughly enjoyed this video.

Can we just all agree that Rob needs to start a podcast?

@danpreston564

5 ай бұрын

I think there are enough white man podcasts right now.

@DawnDavidson

5 ай бұрын

@@danpreston564Is there a word nerd who is a person of color whose podcast we should be listening to? I really enjoy Rob’s style, but I’m open to learning more, and always happy to get new recommendations. 😊

@ferretyluv

5 ай бұрын

“Can we all agree that-“ No. The answer is always no. Come up with an original comment.

Thunderplump sounds like the bane of pilots trying to land an aircraft in rough weather, they call it a ‘microburst’.

I personally like the usage of philobrutish to describe people who like mean or rude people

Loved this!

Rob and Susie in the same video; my language loving heart is very content now😊

Confelicity is a lovely word!!

More of this collaboration please! Susie Dent is just lovely. I hadn't realised she's brought out a book or two......I shall purchase!

@RobWords

5 ай бұрын

Her books are always a gentle pleasure.

What an absolutely delightful video!

Congratulations! Susie Dent is brilliant!