Word Facts

Writing in multiple languages is not just a convenience for some, but it has in many instances saved lives. Many organizations around the world work to publish healthcare information for minority or otherwise underserved groups in order to make sure that they know what and how to access medical information. Nevertheless, the problem for many, especially in areas with high levels of diversity is cyclical, that those who can't understand—and sometimes can't afford these services—don't go, so there isn't an immediate demand for the necessarily services.  Support Word Facts on Patreon to get access to Word Theories and the Word Facts Podcast, and other perks here:  https://www.patreon.com/wordfacts

In some words like 'rebel' or 'isolate ', the accentuation changes from noun to verb. This is true of 'envelop' and 'envelope'; the only real difference between it and the earlier examples is that the spelling is also different, but the fact that as a verb the stress is at the end yet as a noun it comes at the start . However, the meaning of 'envelope' is not as broad as its counterpart, and really just relates to letters and packaging. This has only been true since the 18th century though, and beforehand it just related to anything that was enveloping. Make sure to check out the new Patreon for more content and information on new projects: https://www.patreon.com/wordfacts

In general, semaphore is a signal of moving hands or flags in a specific way as a way to represent an alphabet. However, while this is often used to describe the specific and globally-accepted for as depicted in the photo below—used for instance on airfields—there is no limit to how a semaphore can look, just like an alphabet. Indeed, even other gestures that are used to give directions are often informally called a semaphore, as with someone guiding a driver how to park. To support Word Facts on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/wordfacts

Language use has been a signal for class and other groupings for as long as those notions have existed, but these linguistic differences are not always just signalling. Even in private settings these trends appear, such as how the majority of Wikipedia results for Bolivia, Namibia and Uruguay are in German. It is true that the former two counties on that list have German as an official language in some capacity, but in all of those the groups are a minority compared to, say, Spanish speakers in Bolivia and Uruguay. It is, even privately, more of an indication of which speakers have access to the internet, and perhaps which articles are better. To support Word Facts on Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/wordfacts

The country with the most official languages is listed in the Guiness Book of World Records as Zimbabwe, with 16 languages (listed at the bottom), but this number is hard to tally sometimes. First of all, most of the world's languages are not codified or standardized, so a county like Papua New Guinea where an estimated 11% of the world's languages are spoken does not—and cannot—list every one of them. Likewise, Bolivia has around 37 official languages, but this includes a few that are extinct, and most—except Spanish— are not official on a national level, but only in smaller subdivisions of the country. The languages of Zimbabwe include: Chewa, Chibarwe, English, Kalanga, Koisan, Nambya, Ndau, Ndebele, Shangani, Shona, sign language, Sotho, Tonga, Tswana, Venda and Xhosa. To Support Word Facts on Patreon for all sorts of benefits, click here: https://www.patreon.com/wordfacts

Many names for language families are done more for the sake of simplicity rather than with much scientific precision. For instance,m the Khoisan, Papuan, or Australian language families respectively can have relatively little relation between the languages that make them up. With the Australian languages, these are made up of as many as 28 distinct language families, which includes some language isolates , unrelated to any other language. Often, this is very political however, such as how Khoisan peoples use the term to raise political support and awareness for multiple minority cultures. Watch more about language families from Word Facts here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzKhTxYYlal1d1-XhqPh122t6bgaNpI7A

In the most recent video, all of the examples of speech were either in the second person, or said as imperatives, but not all examples needed to be. For instance, some of the examples for declaratives were ‘you’re fired’ and ‘welcome inside’, but there are plenty of ways to use declarations without an interlocutor, such as ‘I christen this ship X’ or even just ‘WARNING’. These speech acts apply to any type of speech. Catch up on the video here: https://youtu.be/97RX-SwGq5U

Bankers certainly have an interest in interest, but otherwise the two words don’t seem to overlap much, grammatically or in meaning. However, as you might have guessed from this, the two are indeed related, only splitting fairly recently. The word comes from Latin interesse but in Old French it gained the meaning of ‘possession or right to something’. This then went on to equate to both financial interest, and then in the 18 th century became a associated with wanting to know something. However, in the senses relating to finance and property with this word, it was influenced in the Middle Ages by other words ‘interest’ and ‘interesse’ that had meanings in French and Latin respectively of ‘damage’ and ‘debt defaulting’. Catch up on the newest video here: https://youtu.be/97RX-SwGq5U

The suffix ' -(o)logy ' often is used in words to mean 'study of'. Initially most of the elements to which this suffix affixed itself were Greek in origin, but in other, newer words like 'mixology' the stem word is English. However, other words like 'phraseology' does not refer to the study of phrases, and it never did; the suffix also denotes characteristics of speech and language. This is true of words like 'eulogy' and 'trilogy' as well. Check out the newest video from Word Facts here: https://youtu.be/97RX-SwGq5U

Children have to learn an incredible amount in a fairly short time in order to understand language, but this process starts early as well. A fetus's auditory systems are formed a few months after conception, so for the rest of the time in the womb, a fetus will be able to hear sounds. This includes all types of sounds that are around a mother, but for physiological reasons, the fetus will have a much easier time to hear the mother's voice as she speaks compared to anyone else, as it will be the least muffled. It is believed that the process of linguistic acquisition begins in this time.

There's no question that English is a global language, and possibly the most of all. It is difficult to measure, however, because levels of proficiency vary from person to person, but a generous estimate would look at those who speak English as a primary, auxiliary, or business language, and altogether it amounts to 1 in 7 people. However, notably what makes this different to a language like Mandarin which also has a high number of speakers is that more people speak English non-natively than who learn it as a first language, though this doesn't necessarily mean that they are fluent.

Even in compounds, words that are formed in an uncommon way, like 'man' to 'men' , tend to stay the same, such as in 'postman' to 'postmen'. However, in the case of ' sabertooth ', both 'sabertooths' and 'saberteeth' can be there own words and mean different things. The first refers to multiple of the animal and the second is the actual teeth themselves, becasue 'teeth' is the plural of 'tooth', but in 'sabertooth', the pluralization applies to the word as a whole, because of how a noun in a compound can modify the other in multiple ways.

No matter where—even across languages—'bodega' doesn't denote something that is necessarily fancy; in The Philippines, it refers to any warehouse, and in the Spanish speaking areas or the US it denotes a grocery store. The root word, from Greek, denoted a storehouse, so this makes sense today, but in French the etymological equivalent is 'boutique', which—denoting a small artisanal shop—is not so different literally but culturally is quite different. Indeed, both come from the Greek for 'apothecary': apothḗkē, which only denoted a place for storage. Stay tuned for the new video coming out this weekend by subscribing: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNofHfYEoM2l7fu2340gsDQ

Every studied animal, living or extinct, will get a scientific, so at this point there are quite a vast number, and it can be difficult to keep track of this. For instance,the scientific name for the most famous of the saber-toothed cats, 'smilodon' comes from σμίλη (smilē):a scalpel or two-edged knife, and 'οδόντος' (odontús) which means tooth. Originally however, it was slated to be Hyaenodon from ' hyena ', but then a whole three years later, the discoverer, Peter Wilhelm Lund had found out that another animal already had this name and so changed it to the one used now. To support Word Facts on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/wordfacts

The origin of 'California' is from a book , but for a long time there was a lot of difference in opinion on the matter. Some possibly etymologies popped up that were from many different languages, but one that was particularly arresting and plausible was that the word came from 'caliph', as in the root of 'caliphate'. Nevertheless, even once the novel that inspired the name of California was uncovered, many scholars believed that Ordóñez de Montalvo made up the name 'California'—the name for the fictional utopia—at least inspired by 'caliph'. Ultimately, this will never be known for sure. To support Word Facts on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/wordfacts

The frequency of letters in English starts with E and ends with Q or Z depending upon the count , but when all of these are layed out, the frequency from the most- to least frequent, the chart is logarithmic. This is true, however, of most languages across, regardless of whether or not the spelling is made to match pronunciation to some extent, as with German, and despite writing system. Indeed, this is not just true of alphabets, but even Japanese pictographic characters can be mapped out logarithmically, as shown in the graph below. This is important information for printers, or back in the day, telegraph codes.

Okra has for a long time been a staple of African American cooking, and its linguistic origin shows this as well. Unlike many other classically American —particularly Southern—foods, okra originates from African tropics. It is believed that the name comes from the word 'nkru'. While this in and of itself it not particularly significant, it shows a similar process that happened to other words like it, such as how the Ghanan city—now capital of Ghana—is natively 'Nkran' but is Anglicized as 'Accra'. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzKhTxYYlal1d1-XhqPh122t6bgaNpI7A

Like any good magician might, the etymology of 'abracadabra' has not revealed itself. There were for a long time a lot of folk etymologies as to where it derived, and in particular that it came from a Semitic root meaning something along the lines of "I create the word", but this has since been many-times debunked. The word is actually from Latin, and was used in incantations starting in the 2nd century, usually for medicinal practices, and likely started from Greek. The word is also found in English later, again to indicate sickness, and only recently did it gain the connotations of any kind of illusion or spell. If you liked this, check out the post about ' hocus-pocus '.

Even though the two may be used somewhat interchangeably in lay conversations, there is an understood difference between an 'Islamic state' and an 'Islamic republic'. The former refers to a country that has Sharia as its constitution in some respect, and includes country like Saudi Arabia. In this way, on a state-level the country is Islamic, and usually this will exclude democratic elections. Meanwhile, an Islamic republic may also involve Islam on a legislative level, but it will also include more elections. Ultimately however, there is a great deal of overlaps, and these are just norms for usage. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzKhTxYYlal1d1-XhqPh122t6bgaNpI7A

If you saw the most recent Word Facts video , you'll have seen mention of the Dutch Language Union (DLU) or natively Nederlandse Taalunie, which is an organization that standardizes Dutch between Suriname, Belgium, and the Netherlands. However, this should not be conflated completely with something like Académie Française (AF). Even though the DLU and the AF both organizations created to monitor and regulate their respective language, the DLU is far less prescriptive, and mostly tries to maintain a standardization for spelling, as well as descriptively adding new words to the dictionary, instead of attempting to enforce rules onto other people.

The phrase 'the proof is in the pudding' doesn't make a lot of intuitive sense. Even considering how 'proof' has historically meant ' evidence ' and that pudding has a variety of meanings, the phrase cannot be understood only semantically because the phrase that is used is not the full phrase. As with "the last straw", only the first half of the phrase "the proof of the pudding...is in the eating" is used. The full phrase has been used in many varieties for nearly 700 years, but has always had the meaning of "the only way to know if something is suitable is to test it". Check out the Patreon-exclusive video from yesterday here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/origin-of-word-23236976

The letter X is used for many different purposes. It has a long history of use in algebra, as well as for abbreviations for 'christ', talked about more following the link here . There is some discussions as to where X as an abbreviation for kisses came from, but generally it is thought to be from the same root of ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ as the Greek for Christ, which would be written on the end of letters and then kissed to display an oath. The practice has since moved away from its Christian roots, but the letter—and its general symbolism—remains. This is the 4th anniversary of Word Facts after over 1,400 posts and 21 public videos. Check out the one out today here: https://youtu.be/qyOUlO5ipio . Please like share and subscribe

The world record for the longest English word with only vowels and at once the English word with the most consecutive vowels belongs to 'euouae', but looking any further at this would show the title to be quite controversial. The name actually refers to an abbreviation for variable endings of psalms in Gregorian chants, but this is nevertheless an abbreviation, and while these can act grammatically like a word sometimes, this was never the intention.Moreover, what it abbreviates is 'in saecula saeculorum, Amen' ('unto the ages of ages'), which is Latin, and selects only some of the vowels in not even all of the words, only these ones capitalized: 'in saEcUla saeculOrUm, AmEn'. This therefore means that it is from a Latin phrase an abbreviation—and an odd one at that—from Medieval music that has this world record, so while it might be technically true it is in some ways a bit of a stretch. Check out the latest video: https://youtu.be/PKXEg15Etk0

Cockney rhyming slang's structure was covered a bit yesterday, but while it might seem pretty silly, this was a widely used system slang for a very long time and into today, and even if you don't use it intentionally, there is a possibility you picked up a few words here and there. For instance, the expression to "blow a raspberry" usually refers to a derisive  sound made by vibrating the tongue against the lips, but it comes from the Cockney "raspberry tart" as a slang for "fart". Another example, though a little more regional, is "berk"—also somewhat distasteful— comes from "Berkeley Hunt" which was slang for 'cunt'. Indeed, there are lots of words and phrases that have made their way into common parlance from Cockney that don't necessarily sound so out of place in Standard English or American speech. Check out the latest video: https://youtu.be/PKXEg15Etk0

Cockney Rhyming Slang is a process by which words are replaced for a usually two-word phrase in which the final word rhymes; for instance, famously 'apples and pears' for 'stairs' but this happens with lots more, including names like how "on one's own" became  "on one's Tod Sloan" to finally just "on one's tod". As just shown, often, the part that held the rhyme is dropped, so that only the first part of the rhyming phrase remains, creating less of a code and more of a cryptolect: a system language used specifically for deception. This is mostly done for nouns, but this process happens for other lexical classes as well, such as 'Duke of York' for 'take a walk'. There will be more on this tomorrow. Check out the latest video: https://youtu.be/PKXEg15Etk0

Folk-etymologies  often are very convenient logically but cannot be corroborated historically. For instance, the phrase 'out of sorts' is often attributed to typesetting , but this cannot be the case. As the claim goes, the 'sorts' in question relate to individual metal type, called 'sorts', that are then distributed into compartments for each letter. With this then, to be 'out of sorts' was to run out of certain letters, but this doesn't have an immediate connection to emotional states, but more importantly this phrase was found much before printing was around. Instead, many people believe that the phrase comes from the Latin 'sortem' meaning 'condition'.

As discussed yesterday [1], writing systems don’t really determine how a language will or will not be expressed. This was, in a certain way, exhibited in English fairly recently with the advent of texting, and therefore texting language. Especially when it was the case that phones could have only 12 buttons and people would have to click several times to select any given letter, people economized on characters and gave the bare essentials, but these essentials were pretty much always consonants, especially when the vowels are in between them. In a certain way this became a bit like an abjad , which marks the consonants and usually only marks vowels at the bookends of words, or for diphthongs, like with Hebrew writing. This is not used as much anymore by necessity, but its use—in any capacity—shows the way in which people can be very flexible about writing systems in general. Check out the latest video: https://youtu.be/PKXEg15Etk0

When discussing the status of a writing system, it cannot be spoken about only as the system for characters and also has a lot to do with the language used to write it. This can be illustrated by taking a look at the writing of Hebrew. Hebrew is not the only language to utilize the Assyrian writing system, though it may be the most prominent of those today. This writing system is also used for Yiddish, Ladino, and other Jewish languages over the years, except while Hebrew did not represent all of its vowels as also occurs with the Arabic and Ge’ez script, but even using all of the same characters Yiddish and Ladino do. This means that for the former it is an abjad whereas for the latter two the same system of characters is an alphabet. And indeed, when Hebrew is transliterated into Latin characters—while there is no standardization for this—it almost always will be vocalic. In this way, a writing system only really can be assessed as it applies to an individual language. There will

As discussed yesterday, terms for money often outlast—at least in an etymological way—economic systems. In addition to ' capital ' and ' buck ' which both came from terms for animals, 'shekel', the modern currency of Israel and historically other Middle Eastern nations also comes from farming. In this case however, it is from a unit of barley, though 'shekel' comes from the Hebrew 'šeqel' whose root means ‘weigh’. These sorts of agricultural terms do have a specific biological necessity and therefore value, so when moving to coinage and paper money—which does not have a definite value—the notion similar valuation stuck. Check out the latest video: https://youtu.be/PKXEg15Etk0

Fiat currency is now dominant globally, but barter has left its mark on it. The word 'capital', though not strictly financial, denotes anything that is an asset to an individual. It originally related to cattle however, counted in heads, or in Latin, 'caput'. For a long time in many societies, including some today, wealth was measurable in livestock, so even as many societies moved away from this model, the derivative word remained. The post tomorrow will look at another way farming influenced monetary terminology. Check out the latest video:  https://youtu.be/PKXEg15Etk0

If even proper nouns have cultural relevance, then they can become any type of other words. For instance, the town of Derby in England is home to an early horse race, started in 1780. Once this race became well-known enough, and because the city is small enough to not necessarily be confused with other activities, it began to be used not just as a denotation for other horse races—though this is also true such as in the famous Kentucky Derby—but for any other type of competitive sport, even though it now only has historical relation to the city most of the time. Check out the new video released today:  https://youtu.be/PKXEg15Etk0

A lot of places are named for their directions, but this only works when the direction are relative. For instance, the East Indies and the West Indies are named so for their relation relative to India as is fairly clear from the name, but a name like ' Austria ' which denotes the south, or its native German name ' Österreich ' meaning 'Eastern Empire' is all in relation to the other German states, though there is a (not particularly important) discrepancy here because it is indeed both south or east depending upon which German states are being selected. However, this gets even more thrown off considering The Philippines , which were named in Spanish first as Islas del Poniente (Islands of the West) not because much is very close in that direction except a very large ocean, but because it was sailed to from Spain first from the West, even though it is much closer to Spain from the East. Ultimately, because the Earth is round, directional names like this don't

Chances are, most people don't know the name for a louse-egg, even though this is part of a phrase many might use daily. 'Nitpicking' is the process of being scrupulous about unimportant details, but very few people would know that a 'nit' is a louse-egg, and ridding oneself of these very tiny things—historically by hand—is 'nit-picking'. This just goes to show the way in which compounds like these—even though they have a very sensible summative meaning unlike ' butter-fly '—exist on their own, and not necessarily by mentally combining the elements.

'The' in the names of countries does happen sometimes, but it is usually purposeful. In the case of 'The Netherlands', it is named so because of the flat area, especially compared to the German highlands, even though in German the name is simply 'Niederlande' without the article before. With Ukraine, often said as 'the Ukraine' in English, this is because the name derives from the meaning of 'borderland' and so while 'the Ukraine' has never been official, it caught on and stuck. In the case of the Philippines, there is less of a reason now, but originally the Spanish name was Las Islas Filipinas, and so while now no name for the nation includes overt reference to the islands, there is a sort of covert reference.

It's not such a bad thing to be humbled generally, but 'eating humble pie' used to actually refer to food. The 'humble' in question came from an earlier 'numbles' or sometimes 'umbles' which denoted the entrails of a deer. These would be given out to the lowest status people to eat, so while for a wealthy or noble person to eat numbles pie would be a humbling experience, this word was only used in the phrase as it is today because of similar sounds and later misunderstanding completely. There will be more on this tomorrow. Check out recent Patreon post: https://www.patreon.com/posts/18918274