Word Facts

It's much easier to introduce meaning to an old word than to make a new one. This is true of words in the sci fi genre that have since become common parlance. A few words like this include terms like 'deep space', 'zero-gravity', and arguably 'robotics'. All of these come from fictional works in the 1930's and 1941, and to varying extents, scientists have embraced all of these in an official capacity. The reason that 'robotics' is debatable here is that ' robot ' is a much older word, but the first known use with the suffix comes from Liar!, written by Isaac Asimov. In this way, it is a bit like how Shakespeare created words .

The suffix '-er' is very productive, meaning that it can lead to the creation of many news words. With words like 'practitioner' however, this is a sort of overproduction, because there is no 'practition'; there is the term 'practicer', but this is not quite the same as 'practitioner' really. In this case, 'practition' never existed, but 'practician' did. The problem here is that 'practician', which is a synonym of 'practitioner' as it refers to a person, is the origin, but it is not as simple as just adding the suffix in the ordinary way, as this would have been redundant. Rather, it is just a way in which language evolved over time, not always so sensibly.

Usually, a top-down approach to language change doesn't work; it's why people still end sentences with prepositions for instance, or indeed why we don't speak Old English. It could be argued that this can happen when something popular enough introduces a new way of using language. Famously, 'friend' is now a verb due to Facebook, and while 'befriend' is still used for non-virtual connections, its use is quickly adopted and now quite pervasive. It is not all Facebook's doing however, as the usual phrase was "added as a friend" and things to this effect even on the website; likewise, the increasingly popular nominal 'react' (as in sort of a codified reaction) is now in use, but not because this is how the website began to speak about the feature. In this way, the perpetuation of these words is now encouraged by the website in a way that traditional grammar-books could envy, but it didn't begin with Facebook alone.

Ask a monolingual speaker of Dutch, German, Yiddish, Frisian, or even Afrikaans could probably understand a good amount of what a speaker of any of the other three was saying as these are all West Germanic Languages. However, when it comes to English, which is also West Germanic language, there is not that same intelligibility. The vocabulary is saturated with far more French- and Latin-based words, and even North Germanic words. However, this is not the only reason. It is generally the case that isolated peoples' languages will develop very separately, but moreover, those Germanic tribes who settled Britain did so, often before the other languages split off from each other. This is how Frisian is the closest related language to English today, and yet a Dutch speaker would have an equally difficult, perhaps even easier time understanding.

One of the best signs to see if a language is being used is to see how it is changing; even if many people are fluent in a language, unless it is developing with time it is unlikely that people are really using the language. This is sometimes the case with minority languages, that they can sometimes be seen to be 'textbook languages, i.e. most second-language speakers must learn from varied sources but without much of any non-native speakers for sources. For instance, just about any textbook for Yiddish will list 'window' as 'der fenster' (דער פענצטער) but now most people, especially within North America would say 'di vinde' (די װינדע) or 'tryn' (טרײן) instead of the earlier, and more German 'pruvn' (פּרווון).

Just because something is a loan word does not mean that it has the same meaning or at least connotations. This happens for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it is because the original meaning is not relevant as a loanword, as is the case with 'kamikaze' (read more at the link ). The Japanese meaning had nothing to do with war necessarily, but in English it got adopted to describe a military practice that had previously no single word to describe it. In other cases, words can gain or lose emotional meaning without being totally mistranslated. For instance, 'mensh' ('מענטש‎') in English refers to a good, commendable person, where as in Yiddish it only means 'person', with no innate quality implied, but often these loanwords are either misunderstood, or bilingual speakers use them for emotive effects and misinterpreted.

There are lots of Indonesian words with the letter V, but many of these are foreign loan words . Those that aren't, like the place-names 'Java' or 'Sri Vijaya' are natively pronounced with the V as the sound [w]. The name Java especially however gets mispronounced by English speakers due to the spelling, but the opposite is also true of words from, for instance, Polish and German wherein English speakers often pronounce W as a [v] even in proper nouns , like Warsaw, which is natively pronounced [varʂava].

Rhoticity is defined as the quality of r "pronounced before a consonant...and at the ends of words" but this slightly problematic. The idea that in non-rhotic dialects r is not pronounced is only true in that an r is not articulated, but it is not completely deleted either. For instance, Standard British English is more vocalic than Standard American because rather than inserting a consonantal r, speakers of British English would simply lengthen the amount of time that the vowel is produced. This has the effect that the ratio of time spent producing vowels is higher in British English than American in general, so the perceived r is certainly noticeable, and does has an effect on pronunciation that would not otherwise be present.

There is no innate rule or biological limitation, but languages will have more consonants than vowels. Even in extreme cases as with Andoke—a Columbian language—there are 10 consonants and 9 vowel qualities, which is still the majority. The reason for this, in part, can be seen in the fact that there are very few fronted rounded vowels (try moving your tongue in position saying 'tea' but round your lips as you would to say 'too'). This vowel, and others like it, do exist in other languages, but are sometimes difficult to distinguish, both by the listener, but also the speaker. Some languages have as few as 2 vowel qualities. Check out the newest Word facts Video: https://youtu.be/X53moUzeEms , and give your support on Patreon: patreon.com/wordfacts

An estimated 42% of Indonesian loanwords are from Dutch, but some 21% come from English. The Dutch controlled Indonesia for 123 years so the first statistic makes sense, but no English speaking group has had that same ability. While it is true that it is often difficult to decipher whether loanwords are originally Dutch or English as these are both so similar, these English loanwords came almost exclusively from foreign media and a global emphasis on trade which is English-based. It is so useful that not only is it used for trade but vocabulary has also seeped its way into everyday speech.

It is not uncommon that certain pairs of sounds will replace each other over time in some etymologies. This tends to happen for instance between [b] and [p] , but with enough time it is possible to have some shared etymology that hinges on [b] and [g]. For instance ' brute ' is related through a Proto-Indo-European root to 'guru'. 'Guru' is from Sanskrit but cognates in other languages like the Ancient Greek βαρύς (barús) help to show some of the transitions over time. The relation between [t] and [ɾ] makes enough sense given that this happens in English (e.g. 'butt' with [t] but 'butter' with [ɾ] in American English). The [b]-[g] relationship is less typical but over enough time and across languages this is not so unsurprising to have big differences somewhere. It is really only a coincidence that in English 'guru' denotes a sort of expert but a 'brute' conveys insensibility or idiocy.

Sometimes Classical history seeps into popular culture, as was and still is the case with the line "et tu Brute?" ("and you Brutus?") in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. However, it was not due to this assassination that Marcus Junius Brutus got a name with the same root as 'brute' and 'brutal'. Indeed, this word was in use for millennia before, and exists in many other languages. In Latin, the word 'brutus' doesn't mean 'violent' however, and instead means 'dumb'; Brutus got his name because he purposely acted foolish to survive in the court of Tarquin. It was for this sort of association between idiots and violence that the meaning switched however. There will be more about the etymology of this word tomorrow. Check out the newest Word facts Video: https://youtu.be/X53moUzeEms , and give your support on Patreon: patreon.com/wordfacts

Latin doesn't really have a word for 'yes' , and yet modern Romance language that descended from Latin do. In Spanish the word 'sí' and in Italian the very similar 'sì' also means 'yes', but the former comes from the Latin 'si' meaning 'if' and the latter derives from the Latin 'sīc (est)' meaning 'thus (it is)', so are therefore unrelated. Moreover, in French, 'oui' comes from 'hoc' meaning 'that', and moreover Occitan  uses the word 'òc'; likewise the Portuguese 'isso' also comes from a Latin word for 'that', but a different one. In this way, Spanish and Italian's words for 'yes' sound the closest but are really not at all related. The etymology of the Romanian 'da' is debated, with some saying it is from a Slavic origin while others say it comes from the Latin 'ita' which means 'therefore'. As you can see, none are really from the sa

There are lots of reasons that people might use phrases, some of which may seem contradictory. People could use it to convey an idea quicker, but other phrases take longer to say; "a stitch in time saves nine" is longer to say than just "don't procrastinate" but moreover phrases like " he's cute as a button " are not only longer in total but actually build off the initial idea (i.e. here it could just be "he's cute". The difference is that the phrase conveys an image that might stick better in the listener's mind than to just state the concept, because language is fundamentally about conveying ideas and images, and the more colorful the better.

Many people who study Latin may not know the word for 'yes', but while Latin is not usually taught conversationally, that is not the reason why. Unlike in many languages now, Latin didn't have a distinctive exclamation or interjection for affirmation. Instead, people would reiterate the main verb to express agreement, or for an even greater effect would say 'etiam' meaning 'same'. This is why many Romance languages have very different words for 'yes', which will be explored tomorrow. Check out the newest Word facts Video: https://youtu.be/X53moUzeEms , and give your support on Patreon: patreon.com/wordfacts

Certain unaspirated sounds can often sound the same; there is no reason why why write 'stop' as such and not ' sdop ', but they are are always remarkably similar. This is true of [t] and [d], [k] and [g], and [b] and [p], but all of these (though less [k] and [g]) therefore get confused over time. For instance, the word 'pretzel' is 'Bretzel' in Swiss-German, as it was in all german dialects before it was bastardized, as will inevitably happen to words over time. Originally this comes from the Latin 'bracchiātus' ("having branches or arms"). Notably, 'brachial' and 'brachiosaurus' also share this root, but all of these words have a [b].

Just because a phrase like "the birds and the bees"—as it relates to sex—does not have one definite origin does not mean the information we do have is useless. There are a plethora of theories as to where this expression comes from, but while the written sources date from the 17th to the 20th century, none of them use the phrase as it is said today, and instead may include ideas of birds or bees separately, or very vaguely; this is the nature of euphemism  after all. But this is still useful because it is likely that this phrase, and many others, did not come from thin air, but would have developed gradually over time anyway.

When the question of a standardized form of a language comes up, it is usually about nationalization. After all this is the reason most languages have a standard form, if they have one at all: most don't. However, there has never been a state run by Yiddish-speakers, and yet there is a " Standard Yiddish" . Like with Standard British English or Standard American English, the majority of Yiddish speakers today do not speak the standard or "neutral" variety, and so this is somewhat controversial since this is what is taught when taught as a second-language usually, but unlike with the Englishes above, Standard Yiddish was created more as as amalgamation of features from a few major dialects. Even so, what is considered standard is based off of what was used for the majority of literature, as writing usually is a larger basis for what makes up a language's standard form than just speech.

It is much harder to find the etymology from phrases as compared to individual words. In part this is because informal phrases don't show up as often in writing, but writing is the best—and historically only—way to record language. Moreover, because phrases are usually not as necessary as individual words, they often emerge suddenly out of only one language and can disappear easily, and unless the phrase comes from something like a book or a play, there won't be enough data to make a conclusion on origin. This does sometimes happen , but in the case of a phrase like "mind one's p's and q's" there may list several possibilities.

This is Word Facts' 1400th post. Please consider sharing. In discussions of word order, it might seem that there must be consistency for languages to be able to be categorized, but this is not always the case. Disregarding the fact that some languages don't have subjects (see more here ), exceptions to word order still exist in many languages. These appear in English in some contexts, usually due to pronouns , and other Indoeuropean languages have small exceptions here and there, but in Middle Mongolian this was very different. In this language, the order consistently depended upon whether the subject was a noun or a pronoun; in the former case, the order was subject–object–predicate, but when the subject was a pronoun, the order was object–predicate–subject. This may be similar in concept to an ergative-absolutive  language, but not quite the same.

Yesterday , it was discussed how there are other voices outside of just the active and passive for verbs. To understand these better, you can watch this video . However, Classical Mongolian has some extras in addition to one's discussed before. The reciprocal voice shows a relationship between two nouns that are both the agent and the patient (not quite the object) such as would be indicated by 'each other's' in "Adam and Billy cook each other's dinners". The other of these two is the cooperative voice which shows cooperation between two nouns, but this is very similar to the reciprocal voice or even just a plural verb in everything except the fact that there is a distinct suffix.

In the video published yesterday, the idea of the middle voice was discussed. However, while the passival this is the only way that the active and passive voices are subverted in English, many languages have other options. For instance, Hebrew and Ancient Mongolian both have 5 voices but not all of these are the same; they both have active, passive, and causative (i.e. the verb indicates causation) but Hebrew has what are called the intensive and reflexive voices to indicate intensive force on an object and indicate when a subject is an object as well (like in "he shaved") respectively. Ancient Mongolian has two others as well, but these will be discussed tomorrow. https://youtu.be/X53moUzeEms

To describe differences in vowels among accents, people often will describe mergers and splits. A merger is when two sounds that began as distinct in certain context begin to sound the same. For instance, the so called PIN-PEN merger present in Southern American English means that the pronunciation of those two words that are distinct in Standard American English sound the same before a nasal sound. A split has the same effect, but the opposite chronology. The FOOT-STRUT split is now more common than the opposite, wherein the vowel in those two words sounds different, but originally these would have been the same. Check out the newest video, out just today: https://youtu.be/X53moUzeEms

On this blog, there's been a great deal of discussion about diminutives , but these are usually historical, from other languages, only able to be applied to certain words, or all of the above. However, hypocorisms as they are called can be far more flexible. The term includes diminutive affixes like '-ling' in 'duckling' but also other alternate forms of words such as nicknames. For instance '-ie' or '-y' to the given name 'Rose' to make it 'Rosie' isn't exactly diminutive, and this is especially the case when names are reduced first, such as 'Jonathan' to 'John' to 'Jonny'. However, while these aren't proper diminutive suffixes, they are far more productive—i.e. they can be added to more words—than is the case for any other diminutive suffix in English at the moment. Check out the newest Word facts Video: youtu.be/dntJLHmkfhw , and give your support on Patreon: patreon.com/wordfacts

It is only due to politics that the Spanish Flu has the name it does. There is no disagreement that the influenza outbreak of 1918 was exacerbated by the First World War, but that even had linguistic impacts. The disease is thought to have been brought over from Northern China to North America, or originated in North America by itself (although there is no real consensus) and in either case could have just remained more localized. However, both America and the British Empire had extremely strict censorship of the press, and no reports of this flu were aloud to be announced for fear that it would lower morale. Even when it had infected most of Europe, most governments censored their presses except for Spain, which was neutral. As a result of this, while the virus was spreading to all inhabited continents and killing millions, the only people that wrote about it were in Spain, so people assumed it began there. Check out the newest Word facts Video: youtu.be/dntJLHmkfhw , and give y

Trust in etymologies, particularly etymologies of new words for a lay person may simply come down to favorite dictionaries. For instance, the etymology for the word 'facebook' is listed in some dictionaries as being created by this website, whereas other record the usage from several decades before. According to the latter etymology, the word originated from the practice of physically collecting profiles in books along with corresponding names; the name for these 'facebooks' was recorded in some dictionaries as starting in the 1980's. However, other dictionary companies will say that the term originating just from the name of the social media company, though either way the concept behind the name is the same, even if the inspiration may differ. Check out the newest Word facts Video: youtu.be/dntJLHmkfhw , and give your support on Patreon: patreon.com/wordfacts

There are plenty of words for which are plural in construction but (often) singular in usage. ' Physics ' is one such word, and often so is 'bacteria' or 'data', the singular of which is 'bacterium' and 'datum respectively but people don't often bother to make the distinction. Indeed, a common pluralizing suffix in Latin was '-a' as exhibited in the above two words, but also in others such as 'genitalia' for which no singular form exists in English. The word comes from the plural of 'genitalis' but because for both men and women multiple organs act together in tandem, people will simply refer to specific organs such as the cervix or the testis if the singular is desired. Check out the newest Word facts Video: youtu.be/dntJLHmkfhw , and give your support on Patreon: patreon.com/wordfacts

Memes are changing the way that people speak. A formula for a common type of meme is to start with the phrase "me, when I [do such-and-such action]' followed by a picture or video illustrating the point hyperbolically. The meme in German below says just that, translating as "me, when I must go out all day acting like a [decent] person". However, in German, it begins with 'ich' which is used for subjects whereas English uses the object form 'me'. From a grammatical standpoint this makes no inherent sense, but consider that people also say " it was me " in English all the time, and do use the wrong case for the pronoun at times, but memes are certainly adding to that to the point that people have begun to speak in this way as a way to signal informality and camaraderie. This is another instalment of Linguistics in the Wild. For the rest, click here: https://stonewordfacts.blogspot.com/search?q=LITW

Phrases like "that's what she said" are generally not thought of as particularly respectable. In part this is because it is fairly crude by nature, but it is more linguistically complex. The whole point that someone would use a double entendre [1] is to hint at meaning without mentioning something overtly, so when the reverse happens—i.e. when meaning is drawn out where it is not intended—not only does this make obvious something that was supposed to be understood to be discrete as would happen with a purposeful double entendre, but it derailing any conversation because it consciously inverts any intended meaning. Check out the newest Word facts Video:  youtu.be/dntJLHmkfhw , and give your support on Patreon:  patreon.com/wordfacts

English has a lot of features that don't maybe make immediate sense, but understanding the history can help. 'Man' pluralizing to 'men' doesn't make immediate sense, and moreover it doesn't necessarily help even to look at related strong nouns  like these but looking at German can help. In German there is essentially the same vowel-shift from 'Mann' to 'Männer' (pronounced with a roughly similar vowel as in 'men'), however in German this change is a lot more consistent. Not all vowels are changed in this way, but the ones that do usually morph regularly. This is a lucky coincidence in some ways, but historically Germanic languages only indicated change in things like pluralization or tense by changing the vowels, so this would have been the norm. For more on this, see: https://youtu.be/T18K38h2ZHc

The German word 'Geschichte' is the term used to mean 'story' and 'history'. This is not a post about the possibility that people considered history as subjective necessarily—that would be for a Word Theory which you can find at patreon.com/wordfacts—but it is true also that the English word 'story' comes from a bastardization of 'history' too. This is fairly peculiar given that even 'history' is from the Romance language family, not Germanic, originating from Latin and brought to English via French; 'history'—because it is from a totally different root in French—is not related to 'Geschichte', even though the fashion term 'chic' of all things is. In this way, the two terms originate from different places, but share a sort of common history, as it were. Check out the newest Word facts Video: youtu.be/dntJLHmkfhw , and give your support on Patreon: patreon.com/wordfacts