People often write 'could of'', 'should of', 'would of', when they should actually be writing 'could've' etc. coming from the phrase 'could HAVE'. There's another example of how pronunciation affects written language in modern English.
Shawn1174q I'd like to think yes, but it's 45 degrees and high humidity where I'm from, so it's hard for me to believe iced coffee came from anything other than necessity!
I thought what? 45 is cold, why would you want an iced coffee and then I remembered the whole fahrenheit/celsius thing. 45c=113f... you poor hot thing....
The colloquial phrase mentioned in this video "A whole nother..." might qualify as a rare example in English of what are called "infixes" (like prefixes and suffixes but instead of being attached at either the beginning or end of a given root word, they're inserted inside of the word (often a compound or multi-syllable word) in order to further refine its meaning -- albeit that the resulting expression is not a single word but a phrase/clause comprised of three individual words not attached to one another.
When you said "Meen cat" and other old english words, it sounded EXACTLY how we say in Danish, almost with the accent too. Min kat is exactly pronounce meen cat :O I continue to be amazed by these things, and that's also why I'm gonna study linguistics startin this summer. I am looking forward to learning more about the relations and language history of European/indoeuropean languages :D
I never heard "Ned" for "Edward" or "Nellie" for "Ellen". I just thought that "Edward" was "Ed" and "Ellen" was "Ellie". I question about "Bill" for "William" and "Bob" for "Robert". Where did the "B" in "Bill" and the initial "B" in "Bob" come from?
Those changing consonants in "Bill/William"/etc. come from Celtic consonant mutations. The nicknames like "Ned/Nellie" are a bit archaic, and now mostly UK.
Thanks for that - though Nell, at least, was _once_ used in the U.K. (The famous Nell Gwyn's given name was a Eleanor, but of course shevis universally known as NEll HWyn, and was so known to Charles I and to others of undoubted Britishness).
I have people ask me all the time why Billy is short for William. I found out it's because of a similar reason to these, but instead of gaining or losing letters, they morphed. If you make the sound for W, then make the sound for B, you will find that they require almost the same mouth movements, you just cut off the B. So William was shortened to Willy, and as it passed through languages, the W morphed into a B, giving us Billy.
***** No. A lot of people don't know it's a nickname and a lot of people just like it more than John and it's more of an old fashioned thing to name a boy John and call him Jack so it's probably more likely that if the person is an old man his name is actually John. But I have known little boys with both.
+Figgy5119 English went through vowel shifts, where Jimmy was Jemmy, a diminutive form of James. It is common in Germanic languages for diminutives to undergo an um- or ablaut with the first vowel, where the a became an e. Then the diminutive -y was removed and we were left with Jim, or Gemme, or Gem, or Jem, etc... (We had no standard of spelling) Dick (Rick) and Bill (Will) are rhyming names where people just used a word that rhymed as a way to show endearment back in the late medieval era. Jack starts off with Latin developing two different names from the Hebrew Yakob: Iacomus, Iacobus, where the b turns into an m. So you got James and Jacob in English from the same root, but in French they got Jacques for both names where the b and m are both dropped. From French Jack entered into English, but instead of becoming a diminutive of Jacob or James as it served in French, we started using the word as a diminutive of John instead for some odd reason.
Anyway, if a nickname starts with “n”, it is possible that the original name starts with a vowel because we usually use “an” with a word starts with a vowel. (NO ONE USE “NMARIA”!)
In Danish a nick(name) still is "et øgenavn", "øge" today means increase or add. A funny thing in Danish is the word "hustru" meaning wife. Originally it was "hus-frue", woman (in charge) of the house, like German "Hausfrau". After some time the meaning became muddled, so it was perceived as "hu-sfru". That is impossible to pronounce in Danish, so the f changed into a t.
He never comes right out and says it but this process is called 'rebracketing' where the boundaries of words are perceived differently A nother example different from his would be Hamburger and it's derivations like Cheeseburger, Turkeyburger, Veggieburger. The word was originally formed as Hamburg+er, a thing from Hamburg, Germany, like Frankfurter as another name for Hotdog. However, even though it clearly is beef, it is made from meat and in America we rarely think about Hamburg but think about ham alot so the word was rebracketed to Ham+burger and the first element was later replaced with different ingredients. Neat! John McWhorter discusses this in another lecture where he covers this topic for a bit longer.
That reminded me how in Portuguese the name corresponding to James is "Tiago". The names apparently look nothing alike, but there is a good (and long) set of reasons why, starting from a common root, they evolved so differently. And, like the extra "N" in Ned, the fact that most people couldn't read and write is a very important factor. (I can explain how James and Tiago are related, if anyone's interested...)
"Sant'-iago"," meaning "Saint Jacob/Saint James," became "San-tiago," right? So people named "IAGO" [ = IACOB/JAMES ] got called "TIAGO" because of this, right?
Who would have thought? That might also explain a similar phenomenon in Haitian Creole. If I'm right, words like "zanj" (angel) or "zanmi" (friend) took their leading Z's off of the S's from the preceding words. In French, "friends" is "les amis"; the S in "les" being pronounced like a Z. So if the same thing happened during the development of Creole from French, "les amis" became "zanmi" by taking the S from "les."
This has happened to the word "astigmatism" (a common condition of blurred vision caused by an irreguarly shaped cornea or curved lens inside the eye). Instead of saying, "I have astigmatism," many say, "I have AN astigmatism."
'Orange', too. Both English 'orange' and Spanish 'naranja' come from the same Arabic/Persian word, 'naranj'. It was dropped in the languages English got 'orange' from (French and Italian, 'orange' and 'arancia'), but not in Spanish.
Notice how /b/ and /w/ are both made with the lips; however, when a baby learns to speak it is with a much more limited inventory of sounds, so Willy becomes Billy because it is easier. This just became a convention in general
In swedish, our word for 'you' has picked up an n in this manner, so that in danish, where this change didn't happen, it's 'i', but in swedish it's 'ni'
this show is my main source of "i've been saying this wrong?" i've never heard anyone not pronouce the B in doubt, or heard the use of "nother" by anyone who wasn't my friend bailey from america.. (but then again he says "yall" so..)
The point isn’t whether it’s “incorrect.” The point is that a lot of people say it, and if enough people say something a certain way, it can make its way into the standard dialect. “Apron,” “notch,” “umpire,” “nickname,” etc. could have been called “incorrect” at one time in history but became the standard later on.
Are we sure about this? I have no quibble with the ekename/nickname thing, but as for Ned and Nellie, I was under the impression they were rhyming nicknames for popular names? In the same way Ted is also sometimes used for Edward. Ed was a nickname shortening, but there were so many Eds, we needed new nicknames. Like Dick, Hick and Hitch for Richard, Peggy/Peg for Margaret, Bill for William, and so forth. First names were few in medieval times, so nicknames had to be creative!
I see a lot of people typing "of" in place of "have." I think it's partly because people are actually saying "could've" and mishearing as "could of," etc.
I've only heard it used within the phrase "a whole nother" (as in: "That's a whole nother issue to deal with, sir.") and not in any other situation. But, maybe it will become more widely used outside of that phrase someday or maybe not.
I say it. I'd never realized I did until the video pointed it out. To be quite honest, my experience has had hearing the words spoken just as the video demonstrated.
It's just idiomatic and a cultural trend. Assuming someone is automatically uneducated for using it when your "proper" English is just a chain of Frankenstein words is pretty arrogant.
My name is Eda, a Turkish name. But most people call Edas (plural of Eda, I hope I used this right) "Edoş". Fortunately nobody calls me Edoş. Turks use "oş" (reading as osh) end of the name a lot. For example Fatma becomes Fatoş.
So you're implying that transmutation of words is proportional to volume of usage? That does stand to common sense, but 'a napron' detracted into 'an apron', and it can be argued that it isn't a noun used on a daily basis for most people. And apple is a fairly common word in english.
The other day I realised that I've always spelled "lånord" (Swedish for "loanword") wrong, I spelled it "låneord" (note the E in the middle). I tried to say it like it's spelled, "lånord", and I immediately understood why I've always spelled it wrong, because it's almost impossible to not put a small E-sound in between the N and the O.
My name is Anna, but my brother seems to think that it is "go away"
"Go away Anna!" Okay Bye! LOLL
Anna not "go away"
In hindi (Indian language), Anna means "come"
Ford Prefect & Water So Anna Wing’s name is come here
Indian girl :)
My nephew used to call shoes and socks "shoes-on" and "socks-on" because he was frequently told to "get his shoes on" and "get his socks on."
People often write 'could of'', 'should of', 'would of', when they should actually be writing 'could've' etc. coming from the phrase 'could HAVE'. There's another example of how pronunciation affects written language in modern English.
Underrated comment
coulda, woulda, shoulda :)
I think the only good place which “could of” could be “the square could of blue” although “the square could be of blue? Would be better.
@@PeriwinkleaccountThe square is coloured blue perhaps?
Does this mean one day I'll be asking for a niced-tea?
+Bannicus A nice tea.
+Garret Jacobs OMG... "I want a nice coffee" they hear "I want an ice coffee" Is that how it came to be??
Shawn1174q I'd like to think yes, but it's 45 degrees and high humidity where I'm from, so it's hard for me to believe iced coffee came from anything other than necessity!
I thought what? 45 is cold, why would you want an iced coffee and then I remembered the whole fahrenheit/celsius thing. 45c=113f... you poor hot thing....
sherryd2000
What is fahrenheit based on? Celsius is based on water, but what made america not water-based?
A nother good video.
nmaria!
nzephyr!
njames!
ncapricorn!
A napple a day keeps the doctor away.
I can see that happening in the future
tbh napple does sound pretty delicious and refreshing
The colloquial phrase mentioned in this video "A whole nother..." might qualify as a rare example in English of what are called "infixes" (like prefixes and suffixes but instead of being attached at either the beginning or end of a given root word, they're inserted inside of the word (often a compound or multi-syllable word) in order to further refine its meaning -- albeit that the resulting expression is not a single word but a phrase/clause comprised of three individual words not attached to one another.
A whole nother side!
When you said "Meen cat" and other old english words, it sounded EXACTLY how we say in Danish, almost with the accent too. Min kat is exactly pronounce meen cat :O I continue to be amazed by these things, and that's also why I'm gonna study linguistics startin this summer. I am looking forward to learning more about the relations and language history of European/indoeuropean languages :D
Swedish too
I never heard "Ned" for "Edward" or "Nellie" for "Ellen". I just thought that "Edward" was "Ed" and "Ellen" was "Ellie". I question about "Bill" for "William" and "Bob" for "Robert". Where did the "B" in "Bill" and the initial "B" in "Bob" come from?
Sami Zeng me too
Or Rick
Those changing consonants in "Bill/William"/etc. come from Celtic consonant mutations. The nicknames like "Ned/Nellie" are a bit archaic, and now mostly UK.
+Kate Gladstone Ned and Nellie are not used in the UK they say Ed and Ellen stays as Ellen
Thanks for that - though Nell, at least, was _once_ used in the U.K. (The famous Nell Gwyn's given name was a Eleanor, but of course shevis universally known as NEll HWyn, and was so known to Charles I and to others of undoubted Britishness).
Somehow I'm not surprised that someone named "whorter" devoted so much thought to nicknames.
I have people ask me all the time why Billy is short for William. I found out it's because of a similar reason to these, but instead of gaining or losing letters, they morphed. If you make the sound for W, then make the sound for B, you will find that they require almost the same mouth movements, you just cut off the B. So William was shortened to Willy, and as it passed through languages, the W morphed into a B, giving us Billy.
My family always says "Hour" with an n, so it sounds like "Nour" because "An hour" sounds like "A nour." It kind of sounds like "Nower."
1:16 The word "eke" does remind me of German "auch", Dutch "ook" and Danish "og".
Well, they all share a common Germanic root.
@FrostCore that too
Bekus it ist ze same vord!
that still doesn't explain why Richard is Dick, James is Jim, John is Jack, etc...
Thank you
***** they do indeed! It's not as common now as it used to be though.
***** No. A lot of people don't know it's a nickname and a lot of people just like it more than John and it's more of an old fashioned thing to name a boy John and call him Jack so it's probably more likely that if the person is an old man his name is actually John. But I have known little boys with both.
+Figgy5119 Or why William is Bill
+Figgy5119 English went through vowel shifts, where Jimmy was Jemmy, a diminutive form of James. It is common in Germanic languages for diminutives to undergo an um- or ablaut with the first vowel, where the a became an e. Then the diminutive -y was removed and we were left with Jim, or Gemme, or Gem, or Jem, etc... (We had no standard of spelling) Dick (Rick) and Bill (Will) are rhyming names where people just used a word that rhymed as a way to show endearment back in the late medieval era. Jack starts off with Latin developing two different names from the Hebrew Yakob: Iacomus, Iacobus, where the b turns into an m. So you got James and Jacob in English from the same root, but in French they got Jacques for both names where the b and m are both dropped. From French Jack entered into English, but instead of becoming a diminutive of Jacob or James as it served in French, we started using the word as a diminutive of John instead for some odd reason.
Anyway, if a nickname starts with “n”, it is possible that the original name starts with a vowel because we usually use “an” with a word starts with a vowel. (NO ONE USE “NMARIA”!)
In Danish a nick(name) still is "et øgenavn", "øge" today means increase or add. A funny thing in Danish is the word "hustru" meaning wife. Originally it was "hus-frue", woman (in charge) of the house, like German "Hausfrau". After some time the meaning became muddled, so it was perceived as "hu-sfru". That is impossible to pronounce in Danish, so the f changed into a t.
People don't even notice when I say "Time is it?" instead of "What time is it?" They deny I skipped over a word at all.
I'll never find McWhorter not interesting, always has a knack for explaining those little linguistic mysteries.
More etymology please. These are fun.
you can't usually be kempt but you CAN be well kempt
I love words and their fascinating history. Thanks for these amazing videos!
My name is John, but most of my friends mistakenly called me legend
Nice lesson, Njohn NmcWhorter.
If you said 'nother' here in Britain you would be deported.
And 'haitches' would get you kicked out of 'Americar.'
Not really. Friendly ribbing, maybe.
I see now how Ted-Ed got it's nickname!
“a whole nother” is absolutely a constant in my vocabulary.
interesting to discover where it came from.
He never comes right out and says it but this process is called 'rebracketing' where the boundaries of words are perceived differently
A nother example different from his would be Hamburger and it's derivations like Cheeseburger, Turkeyburger, Veggieburger.
The word was originally formed as Hamburg+er, a thing from Hamburg, Germany, like Frankfurter as another name for Hotdog.
However, even though it clearly is beef, it is made from meat and in America we rarely think about Hamburg but think about ham alot so the word was rebracketed to Ham+burger and the first element was later replaced with different ingredients.
Neat! John McWhorter discusses this in another lecture where he covers this topic for a bit longer.
That reminded me how in Portuguese the name corresponding to James is "Tiago". The names apparently look nothing alike, but there is a good (and long) set of reasons why, starting from a common root, they evolved so differently. And, like the extra "N" in Ned, the fact that most people couldn't read and write is a very important factor.
(I can explain how James and Tiago are related, if anyone's interested...)
"Sant'-iago"," meaning "Saint Jacob/Saint James," became "San-tiago," right? So people named "IAGO" [ = IACOB/JAMES ] got called "TIAGO" because of this, right?
Who would have thought? That might also explain a similar phenomenon in Haitian Creole. If I'm right, words like "zanj" (angel) or "zanmi" (friend) took their leading Z's off of the S's from the preceding words. In French, "friends" is "les amis"; the S in "les" being pronounced like a Z. So if the same thing happened during the development of Creole from French, "les amis" became "zanmi" by taking the S from "les."
Or "nom" (St Lucian creole) for man. "Un homme" where the N is pronounced in French because of the silent H followed by a vowel. "U - nHomme" = "Nom".
Tu as raison!
lol, the dog was holding his book upside down
You can't be kempt but you *CAN* be well-kempt.
A better example instead of "whole nother", is "all right" vs "alright"
Nickname is an nickname for ekename
My name is Lucy but my nickname is Spider. Somehow.
where I´m from people say "an hour" like "a nower" and now its caught on with "it took me a whole nower" etc.
This has happened to the word "astigmatism" (a common condition of blurred vision caused by an irreguarly shaped cornea or curved lens inside the eye). Instead of saying, "I have astigmatism," many say, "I have AN astigmatism."
the dog was holding the book upside down!
This explains Eddard "Ned" Stark.
What's funny is that in Portuguese you call your favorite Maria "Na-maria" the same way you call a girl "siminina" (or menina).
But this doesn't Explain "Bobby" from Robert or "Dick" from Richard,,,
Due to rhyming: Robert-> Rob-> Bob, Richard-> Rick-> Dick
Or billy for William
'Orange', too. Both English 'orange' and Spanish 'naranja' come from the same Arabic/Persian word, 'naranj'. It was dropped in the languages English got 'orange' from (French and Italian, 'orange' and 'arancia'), but not in Spanish.
+Andrew Lei Yep, the Persian word came from Sanskrit "Naranga" and Hindi retained the N (Narangi) but a lot of languages dropped the N apparently.
+Andrew Lei Yep, the Persian word came from Sanskrit "Naranga" and Hindi retained the N (Narangi) but a lot of languages dropped the N apparently.
mr mcwhorter is one of my favorite narrators
I guess he took it to a whole 'nother level?
So that's where the rule of " 'A' before a consonant and 'An' before a vowel" came from. Sweet!
i have literally never heard "nother" before. i just assumed it was "another"
It's actually "heveled", not "sheveled", and it is a word.
@Matreintsherde maybe lol
Still doesn't explain how William get called Billy
Notice how /b/ and /w/ are both made with the lips; however, when a baby learns to speak it is with a much more limited inventory of sounds, so Willy becomes Billy because it is easier. This just became a convention in general
Daniel Macarro yeah nursery words
The English love rhyme.
Robert-> Rob-> Bob (Hob wasn't uncommon)
Richard-> Rich-> Rick-> Dick
William-> Willy-> Billy
In swedish, our word for 'you' has picked up an n in this manner, so that in danish, where this change didn't happen, it's 'i', but in swedish it's 'ni'
So nickname is a nickname for ekename?
i say a whole other
+Niamh C I do too.
Same here.
0:52 when you call someone with a terrible nickname you just made up for them
That finish at the end with a whole nother side.
People before say knight and other words with kn as KUH-NIGHT until they got laaazyyyy
So, I could have been called Nabby instead of Abby, interesting.
I find the whole reference to "Nmaria" hilarious.
this show is my main source of "i've been saying this wrong?" i've never heard anyone not pronouce the B in doubt, or heard the use of "nother" by anyone who wasn't my friend bailey from america.. (but then again he says "yall" so..)
+Lirk “Purps” Ravnsgaard Haha, same here. I'm not a native speaker of English and I thought it was "dis-heveled" not "di-sheveled" Oops
+Lirk “Purps” Ravnsgaard Haha, same here. I'm not a native speaker of English and I thought it was "dis-heveled" not "di-sheveled" Oops
Wow!!! Thanks for the upload TED
Isn't "nother" grammatically incorrect?
The point isn’t whether it’s “incorrect.” The point is that a lot of people say it, and if enough people say something a certain way, it can make its way into the standard dialect. “Apron,” “notch,” “umpire,” “nickname,” etc. could have been called “incorrect” at one time in history but became the standard later on.
Are we sure about this? I have no quibble with the ekename/nickname thing, but as for Ned and Nellie, I was under the impression they were rhyming nicknames for popular names? In the same way Ted is also sometimes used for Edward. Ed was a nickname shortening, but there were so many Eds, we needed new nicknames.
Like Dick, Hick and Hitch for Richard, Peggy/Peg for Margaret, Bill for William, and so forth.
First names were few in medieval times, so nicknames had to be creative!
I see a lot of people typing "of" in place of "have." I think it's partly because people are actually saying "could've" and mishearing as "could of," etc.
I have been wondering this for years!
Great video! A lot of info to keep up with which I love cuz I kept me thinking!
For those interested, this is called rebracketting.
4:32 the conversation in the animation is a conversation I I've had with my teachers in real life. "what's 'write'?"
Did you notice that upside down 'Name History' book? 1:01
I have a friend Samuel, whose origanal nickname is Sam, whose now nickname is Printer.
While this covers the original origins of nicknames, the weird ones came much later. It became popular for a nickname to rhyme with your actual name.
Don't forget the even later and more contemporary tradition of naming someone after something which commemorates something else.
In finnish nickname is lempinimi. Lempi means favourite/preferred and nimi means name.
I've only heard it used within the phrase "a whole nother" (as in: "That's a whole nother issue to deal with, sir.") and not in any other situation. But, maybe it will become more widely used outside of that phrase someday or maybe not.
Can you make a video to explain the origins of Silent 'K' and 'P'?
Sometimes we call our puppy “muppy” because we accidentally misspoke once and it stuck
So is a 'Nickname' a nickname for 'Nekeaname'?
Now I understand that sometime in the era of old english, there was a really unpleasant man named Richard.
Didn't anyone noticed that the dog was reading the book upside down the whole time??? Just hold the book correctly at the end🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Proof language is an ever evolving entity
I tried to pronounce the thumbnail in ancient egyptian until I realized what it was
Listen, nuncle, sometimes I like to visit far hallows couth in sundry lands.
(Such vacations keep me gruntled. Otherwise, someone gonna get scathed.)
I honestly dont say "nother" and have thought those that do are showing their lack of education.
I've never even heard anyone say "a whole nother". It sounds strange to me. People always say "a whole other" from my experience.
FNHot Same.
I say it. I'd never realized I did until the video pointed it out.
To be quite honest, my experience has had hearing the words spoken just as the video demonstrated.
It's just idiomatic and a cultural trend. Assuming someone is automatically uneducated for using it when your "proper" English is just a chain of Frankenstein words is pretty arrogant.
Its gonna take a real strong argument to convince me that Bill should be the nickname for William instead of the more obvious "Will"
My name is Eda, a Turkish name. But most people call Edas (plural of Eda, I hope I used this right) "Edoş". Fortunately nobody calls me Edoş. Turks use "oş" (reading as osh) end of the name a lot. For example Fatma becomes Fatoş.
So you're implying that transmutation of words is proportional to volume of usage?
That does stand to common sense, but 'a napron' detracted into 'an apron', and it can be argued that it isn't a noun used on a daily basis for most people. And apple is a fairly common word in english.
I was expecting it to be about how John McWhorter got his last name
I don't know where my nickname came from, and it got even more confusing after I watched this video, I'm starting to suspect I just spawned with it
It's like realising you have a tongue in your mouth.
The other day I realised that I've always spelled "lånord" (Swedish for "loanword") wrong, I spelled it "låneord" (note the E in the middle). I tried to say it like it's spelled, "lånord", and I immediately understood why I've always spelled it wrong, because it's almost impossible to not put a small E-sound in between the N and the O.
Ekename = Ooknaam in Dutch although in Dutch it's called your your bijnaam (your additional name)
Also, I have never once said, "A whole nother". Not a thing.
3:05 This will haunt my nightmares. THAT MOUTH
Dad: Quick, Ned write this down!
Kid: What's "write"?
Laughed so hard :D
W is pretty close in pronunciation to B, almost a 'silent' version of it.
on a side note they spell vodka, водка in Russia.
look that dog!!!! i like the way they drew the dog with up side- down book. hihi :))
It is possible to be kempt
It is possible to be couth
It is possible to have ruth
Yeah, people type and say "could of" instead of "could have". Perhaps this will become the future.
4:06 this kinda blew my mind, somehow I have never noticed this additional "n" (I guess I've never written it?), it seems so natural to say though!!
Does anyone say "a whole nother"? It doesn't even pass spell check.
John Keasler
I do
vsauce
What about "Bill"? Wouldn't it make more sense to say "Will"?
+streak1burntrubber german sound for W=B
That one has nothing to do with his name! He simply had other, more impressive qualities. ;)
I use "nother". Everyone has heard that word, but just isn't familiar with it written out.