Word Facts

According to Juhani Sirén, Finns curse more than other Nordic or Central Europeans, and are only met at that level by Scots and Russians, though of course determining what is and isn't a curse word is both a cultural and also individual matter. While cursing can actually affect Finnish grammar , he attributes this reason to the late adoption of Christianity in Finland, even though this would not as be so cut-and-dry for the other two places mentioned. It makes sense for Finland however due to the nature of the cursing being so paganistic , using words like 'perkele' (a pagan devil-like figure), 'ärräpäät' ('dwarf', in the mythical sense) and other mythological references. That said, much of the younger generation is now using more physiologically related words as well. Check out the new video . Get Merch . Support on Patreon.com/wordfacts

Some verbs can introduce a grammar that only really work for themselves. In one such case, 'need' (or needs) will often take an infinitive verb without the infinitive marker 'to' such as in "if needs be", and in some dialects it can also take a participle: "the car needs fixed". In the former example, "if need(s) be" or "if needs must" both imply compelling by necessity, and are pretty old constructions, relying on grammar and phrasing that was once more common than it is now in Modern English. In the latter example, though more regionally variable, the phrase "the car needs fixed" (as in "...to be fixed") cannot as easily be substituted by related verbs like 'want', but this is still possible nonetheless. Check out the new video . Get Merch . Support on Patreon.com/wordfacts

People might be familiar with the idea of a genies who live in lamps and grant three wishes, and while that is true in certain Arabian folklore, the sources for that are very mixed. In one sense, this draws from the Latin 'genius' used for French translations of "The Arabian Nights' Entertainments" which is a term for a sort of guardian spirit. Now of course 'genius' shifted along the lines of 'a person who can influence others' and hence 'a powerful/creative person'. Really though, this concept is adapted from the pre-Islamic Arabian demons called 'jinni' (singular) who could take human forms, and were adopted into Islam during the period of expansion. Check out the new video . Get Merch . Support on Patreon.com/wordfacts

Plenty of places are named for personal names. For instance, there are two cities named Sydney, the more famous being in Australia, named after Thomas Townshend. More accurately, they were named for his title as the 1st Viscount Sydney. This elevation into nobility first came in 1603 with the barony of Robert Sidney, and all of the following barons with this personal name spelt it with an -i-, but the spelling used in the title continued with a -y-. Check out the new video . Get Merch . Support on Patreon.com/wordfacts

Plenty of homophones are not actually related to one another, like 'stalk' for a plant or for a stealthy pursuer. 'Mocha' is a coffee drink and also a type of sheepskin leather, but these actually are related to each other. The word came to English in the late 18th century from 'Mocha', a Yemeni port out of which the coffee and leather were shipped. Check out the new video . Get Merch . Support on Patreon.com/wordfacts

The modern idea of a spa as a resort started with the town of Belgium, Spa, but it wasn't a building that attracted the early visitors. The waters were thought to have healing properties so many would visit the mineral baths for medicinal reasons. Indeed, still many use the word as a general term for mineral (spring) water, or even drinking fountains in some American dialects. Check out the new video . Get Merch . Support on Patreon.com/wordfacts

Slogans can be pretty powerful. Obviously, the intended influence of an advertisement is to effect someone to buy something, but sometimes the effects are further reaching. For instance, moxie is a branded soft drink, but the word 'moxie' now means 'determined character; daring'. This is due to intense marketing of the soda company through ads in a variety of media depicting the 'moxie man'. Check out the new video . Get Merch . Support on Patreon.com/wordfacts

Just because it's not official doesn't mean that people won't use a word. For instance, although British political parties have existed for centuries, the title as leader of the opposition, or "Leader of Her Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition" the head of the largest political party not part of the government) was not official in a technical sense until 1937. Then, it was because the government had to decide how much he should be paid, which in 2019 was £65,181 on top of the regular MP salary. Check out the new video . Get Merch . Support on Patreon.com/wordfacts

Onomatopoeias are words that imitate natural sounds, though somewhat ironically the term itself is not the easiest one to pronounce. Moreover, it has two adjectival forms which have varying degrees of acceptance and popularity: 'onomatopoeic' and 'onomatopoetic', though other forms have also existed including ‘onomatopoeial’ and ‘onomatopoeous’. It comes from the Greek 'ὄνομα (ónoma) meaning and related to 'name', and ποιέω (poiéō) meaning 'to make', with the latter element being the exact same root as 'poem' thence 'poetic'. The form without -t- is the older and these days more common one, though that has varied (see image). Likely influences by the word 'poetic', 'onomatopoetic' was once more popular, but people are now tending towards the traditional. Check out the new video . Get Merch . Support on Patreon.com/wordfacts

Often, when cognates differ in meaning across languages, there is a connection to be found in the meanings. For instance, the Hebrew צדיק (tzadik) meaning 'righteous (person)', often in a religious context, is a cognate the Arabic word for 'friend' صديق (sadiq). The Hebrew term is naturally older, but the Arabic meaning as an adjective, meaning 'truthful' helps to suggest how the meaning would have shifted over time. Check out the new video . Get Merch . Support on Patreon.com/wordfacts

Today, mascots for businesses and sports teams are effectively synonymous with logos, though usually there is an animated component. This idea however has a far more sinister history, wherein animals, children, and people with handicaps and disabilities would be kept around for superstitious beliefs of bringing good luck. Indeed, the term comes to English from the French opera La Mascotte about a woman (a mascot) who brings good luck so long as she remains a virgin. This story involves sorcery, and indeed, the term is just a feminine diminutive of the French 'masco' meaning 'witch', though that word may itself come from Arabic meaning 'mascarade'. In sports, supposed real human good luck charms, and not just characters in costumes, often mentally disabled, were used by teams into the 20th century. Check out the new video . Get Merch . Support on Patreon.com/wordfacts

In 1871, the baseball teams the Chicago White Stockings and the Boston Redstockings were formed. Major League Baseball teams now include the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago White Sox, and while one might assume that these simply evolved as a name change, the White Stockings first evolved into the Chicago Cubs and the Red Stockings evolved into the Boston Braves, who are now the Atlanta Braves. The other teams' names as references to their socks (which in the case of the White Sox are no longer white) came later, but was a fairly common practice for the times, such as how the St. Louis Brown Stockings (now St. Louis Cardinals), or even how the Brooklyn Bridegrooms (now L.A. Dodgers) were often just referred to as the Grays in reference to the uniform. Check out the new video . Get Merch . Support on Patreon.com/wordfacts (Historical logos are not entirely accurate)

When an etymology is given for a certain word, it might trace back to older forms of a language, like Old Chinese or Ancient Greek, but of course the question is answered with another question: where did that come from? Even for certain words for which a root has been reconstructed—which is of course really just a guess—the questions for an origin goes on, except in cases of onomatopoeic words. There are a few obvious ones like animal sounds, the word ' flick ', but some are less obviously derived from onomatopoeias, like ' black ' or 'mom'. Indeed, this is probably true of lots of words for relatives for two reasons: first the fact that basically every word for mother or father across the whole world are already similar because they're derived from baby noises , but also that names for relatives over time aren't consistent. In Polish, the word for grandfather is 'dziadek' which comes from the Proto-Slavic root, dědъ, related to words for 'un

Adjectives in English have very little in the way of morphology except perhaps from comparatives and superlatives, like ' fast-fast(er)-fast(est) '. This pattern is kept in some ways with 'good-better-best' but this is clearly more irregular, with suppletion. However, this is far from the only one like it; German has the extremely similar ' gut-besser-besten ', and Latin has 'bonus-melior-optimus'. This is a widespread pattern, even when the particular words might be different, so if you know more, leave it in a comment. Check out the new video . Get Merch . Support on Patreon.com/wordfacts

The term 'bootleg' these days refers to any type of counterfeited or otherwise illegally distribute materials. The term was popularized in the 1930's during the US prohibition of alcohol, but the actual term can be traced back to the civil war, when the federal troops would keep and traffic flasks of whiskey on their person, in their boot-tops. Check out the new video . Get Merch . Support on Patreon.com/wordfacts

Alley-oop, popularized in the mid-20th century, is a basketball term and is probably most likely associated with that sport, but is actually comes from another sort of sport entirely. In basketball, the term refers to an offensive move in which one player throws the ball near enough to the basket for another player to knock it in. When it originated in the circus however, the French phrase "allez hop" (off you go!) was an announcement that the acrobat was about to jump, and its use in basketball was meant to reflect the manner (and height) that the players would have to jump. Check out the new video . Get Merch . Support on Patreon.com/wordfacts

For languages which mark for case, that is, showing syntax (for nouns) in the form of an affix, as happens in Latin, Finnish, and many others, it is not always identical how new forms are adopted. For instance, Latin loaned many words from Greek, but the nominative case, that is for the subject of a sentence, would often look similar anyway, such as 'hippodromus' from ἱππόδρομος (hippodromos) for 'race-course'. That was classical Latin though, and African Latin, certainly after the collapse of the empire, would borrow words from other languages' accusative forms. Check out the new video . Get Merch . Support on Patreon.com/wordfacts

There are a number of phrases like "I'll be a monkey's uncle" and "Bob's your uncle" that on the surface seem weird—and they are—but at least with the latter example, there is a reason. It is generally understood that the Bob in question was Robert Cecil (of the 19th century) who promoted his nephew AJ Balfour to many key governmental positions. He was underqualified for much of them, and many ascribed it to the fact that "Bob's your uncle", as in "and there you have it". ... Check out the new video . Get Merch . Support on Patreon.com/wordfacts

Although Hebrew has some doublets which are not semantically linked, including the root כבש (K-B-Sh) giving way to 'pickle' and 'highway' , but in other similar cases, there is a reason that can be derived. For instance, the words for 'to desecrate' לחלל (l'khalal) and 'flute' חליל are related. This is not because flutes are unholy in any way, but that what we translate as 'desecrate' in Hebrew really has a meaning closer to being 'empty'; חלל also means 'space' as in outer-space. ... Check out the new video . Get Merch . Support on Patreon.com/wordfacts

Biblical theology expressed in English is necessarily different to how it is in Hebrew, or even Greek. ' Heaven ', 'angel', 'Garden of Eden' all have separate English-based connotations beyond the literal meanings. Heaven has been explained here before, and 'angel', comes from the Greek ἄγγελος (angelos) meaning simply 'messenger', as it also means in Hebrew מלאך (malʼākh). This is further true of 'Garden of Eden' (גן־עדן) which is not the name of a garden per se, but as it is translated for Genesis 18, 'Eden' (עדן) means 'pleasure'. This is true of a great many words, and perhaps especially names in the Bible, so leave some more in the comments. Check out the new video . Get Merch . Support on Patreon.com/wordfacts

Printing press, often designed in the Holy Roman Empire, led to the permanent loss of several letters in English, and so did the typewriter, but only temporarily. In early US typewriters, there were only 24 keys for the letters, though of course the alphabet has 26 letters. The way this was done was a doubling up of the letters I and O with the numbers 1 and 0. Check out the new video . Get Merch . Support on Patreon.com/wordfacts

Although lots of Indo-European languages have separate words for a 'god', in some cases at least there was a shift as Europe Christianized. For instance, while English does not display grammatical gender (except in pronouns), Old English did. In Old English, the gender for the word for 'G-d' was originally neuter when the culture was paganistic (just 'god' in Old English) but changed to the masculine to reflect the change in religion. Check out the new video . Get Merch . Support on Patreon.com/wordfacts

Although we may think of grammar as being strictly linguistic, but there are a few things that are cultural. For instance, when referring to a collective head of hair in English, one would use the singular with no article: "she has purple hair"; in German however, it is usual to use the plural "Sie hat lila Haare" (lit. "she has purple hairs"). Of course, in general, this is how one would use the plural in English, e.g. "he has purple dogs/clothes/pens". For the latest Word Facts video, watch on Youtube , or on the Website .

Sneezing is universal, but what's done after is (s)not. In much of the anglophone world, "G-d bless you" after a sneeze is common, but considering this is not done for other things like coughing, it might just seem like a cultural quirk. It is, however, credited to St. Gregory the Great in the early 7th century, though that said, the non-Christian Romans also had a virtually equivalent phrase, 'absit omen' (evil be gone!); the ancient Greeks had a similar custom. Check out the newest patreon post or the Word Facts store .

This is post #2,000. You can now wear, drink, or otherwise stick your excitement with Word Facts merchandise ! A desert in Australia is creatively named the Great Sandy Desert, though this is not even the biggest on the continent. Indeed, this is also not the only Great Sandy Desert, as there is also one in Oregon, USA, though this is often also called High Desert. In the case of Australia, there were other names given as well including Western Desert or Canning Desert, both on account of its location, but as can be discerned from the continued use of the nearby Lake Disappointment, a salt lake with no fresh water, Australia doesn’t mind blunt names.

Tomorrow will be post #2,000. Subscribe for a special announcement tomorrow. Based off the words ‘increase’ or ‘decrease’, there is an evident stem *‘crease’, but this has no relation to the verb 'crease', as in a fold; if this were true, then decreasing would only be to remove wrinkles through ironing. It is taken to be that ‘crease’ comes from ‘crest’ since both of these are from folding clothing, but even that appears to have a separate relation, as it initially referred to the top part of a helmet. Keep in mind however, that it comes from the Latin ‘crista’ meaning ‘plumage’, still used in zoology, and that the process of creasing cloth was used to crease the sense that these crests were like hair. This is why increase/decrease are so different, those coming from the Latin ‘crescere’ (to grow). Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

As mentioned yesterday, the words for 'granddaughter' and 'niece' (also with the masculine) are the same in many languages [1], historically and in modern times. However, as this can lead to confusion, other words have come around including the Old English broðordoh̩ter (brother's daughter). This is how the words for nephew and niece can be related from languages from Ireland (OI 'necht') to India (Sanskrit 'naptih'), but exist along other synonyms along the way. Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

In a family, nieces and nephews have to be related, but the terms for something quite basic and personal in its meaning look very different to one another. In many forms of Indo-European languages, it is the same word for 'grandson' as it is for 'nephew', basically just denoting a younger non-child relative. There are approximated roots of *néptih for women and *népōts for men; you might notice that looks like 'nepotism' and that would be a correct assumption . Even in Middle English, these words looked more similar, with the masculine 'neve' and the feminine 'nift', and the main difference today is because English went on to adopt the dialectal French 'nevu' (nephew) and 'nece' (niece), which are ultimately from the same Indo-European roots, but in the case of 'niece', the [s] sound assimilated from a [t], as in the German 'Nichte'. While many forms today do indeed look different, that is a fairly common process f

A cesspool is not a pool of 'cess', though in Irish it is another term for taxes, and no one likes those either. Rather, looking at its older form 'suspiral', which denoted an air vent or water pipe, this is all derived from the Old French 'souspirail' from the Latin 'sub-' (‘from below’) and 'spirare' meaning ‘to breathe’. However, by at least the 17th century, the spelling had changed with association to the word 'pool', and 'cess' took on a meaning of its own, probably related to sewage, as can be seen also in 'cesspit'. Moreover, since it denotes an underground container for sewage, it has lost the relation to air anyway. Support Word Facts on  patreon.com/wordfacts

English has a lot of words where an affix will change the original stem, like conservative-conservatism, dropping the terminal-V, or exclude-exclusion, losing the final-D. Nevertheless, this is not the case with tyrant-tyranny, where apparently the final-T is missing. Actually, that T was added in Old French, probably with association with the participial ending -ant, though of course 'tyrant' isn't one. The original Greek τύραννος (tyrannos) does not have one, and would just be rendered 'tyran' in English. Support Word facts on patreon.com/wordfacts