OMG, I'm so glad you guys are back! Of course I understand you need breaks, we all do, however, I really missed you and it's so good to have an intelligent laugh about language again! Thank you so much!
Every time odd or fake words and Johnson's dictionary come up I'm invariable reminded of the Blackadder episode where Blackadder keeps making up words, and Johnson seems to need to add them. My heartiest contrafibularities on the return of your podcast!
I ran across a story about "grunge" that is similar. When Nirvana blew up, a US national magazine/newspaper sent a journalist to write a story about the Seattle music scene and started by interviewing employees at a local record store. A staffer at the store said a co-worker just made up "grunge" slang to tell the journalist and the journalist too lazy to care printed it without doublechecking.
I love the story that the wonderful Dorothy Parker, attending a Halloween Party, when told that people in the next room were “ducking for apples” replied, “There, but for a typographical error, is the story of my life!” 😂
Born when I was (1950s) for the first few years of my life I thought it was bomb fire. In fact we all called it 'bommy night'. It took me even longer to realise that the 'debry' my parents kicked me out of the house to play on (a flattened area opposite, covered in cinders and bits of broken brick) was in fact debris. :o)
A friend of ours had a "ghost " name when he served in the military. When he enlisted he told the recruiter his name was JR and was asked what that stood for and he said, "nothing-it's just J only and R only. His enlistment was issued for Jonly Ronly.
When discussing the origins of 'werewolf', surely a validation of 'were' meaning 'man' is found with the AngloSaxon word 'weregild' (or 'wergild') - which means 'man-price', the value set on the life of a slain person, paid to their lord or kin. It's funny that Jess referenced Beowulf, as weregild is mentioned in that work. EDIT: apologies for I've just discovered others have priorly mentioned this :)
There's (possibly) no need for "wifwolf" as until fairly recently, using the word for "man" to mean "human" (of either gender) was common and acceptable. In "werewolf" this would be completely logical.
I was going to leave a comment about how a site dedicated to the knowledge of all things witches could be called Wiccapedia. But apparently it’s such a great idea there’s already a site and book called that.
@@jonathanfinan722 Sloppy joes are a sort of thick meat sauce between two hamburger buns for a quick, messy meal. A commercial canned version of this is called “Manwich” (supposedly because it’s a manly food): thus “men witch” and “Manwich.” I must say this same pun occurred to me also.
I mean, "arse" aside, that isn't entirely wrong in spirit. Etymologically, "wizard" is the word "wise" with the intensifying prefix -ard on it, but that -ard usually makes words into pejoratives (e.g., dullard, drunkard, buzzard, bastard). I'd wager he was aware of that when he made that joke! - Jess
Though I am not so bold as to offer categorical assertions regarding the vowel values that were in use in English and in Hindi when गोली (golee) became goolie, it seems that there is some benefit to be derived from the drift in pronunciation. We would prefer to keep some distance between the idea of shooting goolies and that of shooting goalies.
@@harryburleigh8358 No doubt, that's why ice hockey goal tenders where all that padding . . . protect their goalies because they are tender. Go ahead. Say "goolie" with a Canadian accent then tell me I'm wrong.
Can't go wrong with a couple of wordsmiths (nerdsmiths?) who casual quote Terry Pratchett during a discourse on word meanings and origins. 10/10, would (will) watch/listen again. 👍
In Dutch, the word ‘geest’ still exists alongside ‘spook’ and can be used somewhat interchangeably, though geest is also used to describe spirit and/or the things that gives life to something/somebody, metaphorically speaking. Spook is used almost exclusively to refer to a ghost.
Yes, was looking for this comment :) I love how 'geest' can be turned into 'geestig' which would directly translate to spiritually or ghostly, but actually means 'funny' in Dutch!
Lanterns were carved from turnips (swede) in Scotland in my youth, much to my mother's annoyance. I have knackered SO many spoons making them!😂 Oh, the smell of burning neeps!
You will be glad to know that "FOUP" is now a common word (albeit an acronym) in modern semiconductor (microchip) manufacturing factories ("fab" from "fabricate"). A "FOUP" is a Front-Opening Universal Pod. A plastic box that is used to contain, protect and transport typically 25 silicon wafers (usually 12 inches / 300mm in diameter).
In Finnish, the word for nightmare is "painajainen" which comes from the word "painaa" which means to press, or "painaja" which means "one who presses". So "painajainen" could loosely be translated as a creature or spirit or being that presses. From what I understand, the feeling of being pressed is related to sleep paralysis, which is a common human experience, so it makes sense that a lot of languages would have a close association with their word for nigthmares or bad sleep and bad dreams, and the feeling of being pressed by someone. Many cultures have ascribed the feeling to some sort of evil ghost that visits during the night and presses on people.
I first came to see more of Jess's mesmerising eyes. I stayed for the scintillating conversation between Jess and Rob. High on my list of entertaining and educational channels.
I'm not positive, but I think weregild was used in The Lord of the Rings novels. I have the books & the audiobooks (& the movies)- I'll have to look that up coz now it's gonna drive me mad!
@@beverlykrebs4372 Isildur said that he would take the One Ring as weregild for the deaths of his father and brother (Elendil and Anarion) in Peter Jackson's film The Fellowship of the Ring. I don't remember the same line from the books.
@@markstott6689 YES! Now I remember! As many times as I've watched those dvds, you'd think I would instantly remember that! Advice for the day... DON'T GET OLD!! 😂
'Mischief nights seem to be more widespread. A while ago, my dad told me that in Austria (Salzburg to be more precise), there used to be a tradition that on the eve of a certain Saint's day (I forget which), teenagers would go around stealing stuff from people's gardens. In particular, they would go for furniture, prompting people to tie these down as best they could beforehand.
@@arcuscotangens Saint Walpurga's Eve. The night of April 30th to May 1st. The actual witches' night. All Hallows' Eve is the night of the restless dead. And the tradition pretty much died out in the late '90s because of old people (particularly those moving from cities into formerly rural, newly quasi-suburban areas) complaining about it being a nuisance and claiming (rarely real) property damage, just in time to be effectively replaced by Anglo-American Hallowe'en traditions, which largely the very same old people then complained about being a nuisance, foreign, and commercial=fake. Party poopers.
In Bavaria that's called Freinacht. Traditionally the "stealing" isn't about keeping the stuff for yourself but rather to move it to a place where it is obvious to spot but rather hard to retrieve from. The classic example is the garden gate put on a roof. Really damaging stuff at least isn't intentional.
From what I have read, "sleep paralysis" happens when your mind awakens before your body so you feel as if you are trapped because your body cannot move because it's still asleep.
There's probably some kind of puritanical explanation of wet dreams in there, like if a man ejaculated while asleep or had an erection when he woke up, he would say a succubus caused it.
No one has pointed out the irony of Rob and Jess wearing Christmas colors to do do a Halloween themed show. Growing up In Detroit, the Night Before Halloween was called Devil's Night. All the usual destructive Mischief would happen as well as the burning down of vacant houses of which Detroit had a lot of.
Also from Detroit, and I've never heard of "Mischief Night". It was always "Devil's Night" for me too. Based of the numbering systems of Decimal (base 10) and Octal (base 8) their wardrobe is appropriate because Dec 25 is the same as Oct 31! Spooky!
I spent a few years in Switzerland (French part) nearly 20 years ago. US-style Halloween was just coming into fashion, but they didn't know quite what to do. We had kids coming to our door for treats throughout the week up to Oct 31.
Hi Guys... sorry... just to say that in my youth in Ireland in the 1970's "trick or treat" at Halloween didn't exist, yes we played games and such but the modern going around the neighbours for gifts or treats was done on St. Stephan's Day (26th Dec) and was called "Hunting the Wren"... similar to Halloween but on a different day
Ah, that makes me think of a Christmas album I heard long ago which had a song on it called The Wren about that. May have been The Chieftains' Bells Of Dublin...
It comes from the medieval tradition of giving alms to the poor on feast days, and because they didn't want something for nothing they'd pray for their benefactors in return. This is attested not only on All Soul's Eve and Christmas Eve, but on other Feast Days throughout the year. This tradition was largely abolished in Protestant countries following the Reformation, although some of the traditions associated with Halloween begin to crop up again in Britain following the Restoration, although a week later on Guy Fawkes Night. The medieval Halloween traditions were preserved in Catholic Ireland and were reintroduced to Britain and introduced into America in the 19th and 20th Centuries with increased emigration to those countries following the potato famine. The tradition further spread in Britain with the popularity of American culture, especially through TV and Movies. The Christmas Carolling tradition was resurrected in the Victorian period, largely due to the spread of literacy and publication, under the influence of the Royal Family and authors like Charles Dickens. A good source for all this is "Stations in the Sun", an accessible but also quite academic book by Professor Ronald Hutton.
Rob mentioned mischief night before Halloween. Some parts of the U.S. use that term, but in Detroit it was called Devil's Night and became infamous for several arsons in the city every year. In recent times this trend has subsided.
“Mischief Night” was called “Devils Night” when I lived in Detroit. Beyond soap bars writing on cars… downtown tended to burn vacant houses. This night went on a lot longer than other places
I love making random connections to my own language when listening to you guys. I was completely surprised when I heard Rob saying the French work 'cauchemar', cause it sounds almost exaclly like Polish 'koszmar', which I assume was borrowed from French. And now I know it's etymology!
I’m not sure how true this is, but I heard that this word is also related to the name of the Slavic goddess Mara, which, in turn, is related to such Ukrainian words as примара, марити. And all of these words seem to be derived from the Indo-European *mar or *mor meaning “death”. I hope someone more knowledgeable than me will be able to confirm or deny this theory.
I'm old enough that when I was a child, Halloween still had an apostrophe in it, even in the US. But now my dictionary doesn't even have that as a variant. I tell my students that, and they look at me like that's the craziest thing they've ever heard.
What do you mean “we used to have mischief night”? It’s very much a thing around our way in West/North Yorkshire. Egging, knocking on doors, pinching milk bottles and washing etc. It was certainly positively encouraged when I was a nipper.
Uncertain if this was a local term to my neighborhood or all throughout North West NJ but Mischief Night was referred to as Goosey Night circa mid to late 70s. I haven't done any deep investigation into it but I have gotten strange looks when telling people this in other parts of the state and country.
Hoc est enim corpus meum: "For this is my body." That was the derivation of hocus hocus that I learned years ago As you said, it was a Protestant jab against the Roman Catholic belief in transubstantiation.
There is the hawking term, “one fell swoop” as in a predatory fast dive to snare prey. To rush in hastily and fall mightily on one’s face or other embarrassing position was, “one swell foop”, a Spoonerism implying the “faux pas” and the embarrassment surrounding it.
Pertaining to ghost stories, one of my personal favorites pertains to the tragic crash of AA flight 191 in Chicago. To this day, the field where it crashed is said to be haunted by noises, odd lights, and apparitions smelling of gasoline asking about baggage and connecting flights. A close second is Heathrow's "Man with briefcase."
Anything with a hat is a fruit, since the hat part is the stem of the flower, and a fruit is either something that grows out of or around the flower. Berries have hats, tree fruits like bananas have a hat, etc. That's also why tomatos and cucumbers are technically fruits.
A banana is considered an herb in botanical terms because it never forms a woody stem (or trunk) the way a tree does. Rather, it forms a succulent stalk or pseudostem. However because the fruit is produced from a single ovary on the flower, a banana is actually classified as a berry, botanically speaking.
@@georgesibley7152 A berry is a type of fruit. The basic separation is just fruits and vegetables. You can then have additional categories within each. That's why nuts are types of fruit. Vegetables are anything not related to the flower. Usually, leaves or roots, sometimes stems/stalks like with celery.
The "knowledge is magic" theme in language is such a fun one. In Finnish pre-Christian beliefs, one word for a magic user is a tietäjä, which literally means "knower" as in one who knows stuff. As a kid I would dig into any science I could, from earth sciences to astronomy, and the word "tieteilijä" was used a lot to describe me, which roughly means scientist (well, more often you'll hear tiedemies which means "science man" specifically - for a genderless language, we put the word man in an awful lot of places). It's an agent word, and the verb it comes from is "tieteillä" which is a frequentative form of "tiede" (science), so "tieteillä" breaks down as "to dabble in science repeatedly" and "tieteilijä" breaks down as "someone in the habit of doing science" (hence it's got a bit more of a dabbler-type connotation than "tiedemies"). But there's another word that if you made a frequentative form of it, would form that same word: "tietää" (to know) would also become "tieteillä." If you made the agent noun "tieteilijä" from that, it would break down as "someone in the habit of knowing stuff." And it's this second possible interpretation of it that I love, it's like a little knower, a dabbler in the knowing arts, a wizard-to-be, very fitting as I've grown to be obsessed with fantasy and magic in my adulthood, and one of my WIP story ideas has a magic system that involves knowing real-world science :D (yes, my choice of the word "wizard" was on purpose to reference the wise origin of that word) Speaking of wise things, here's a bit of... not exactly wordplay, more like etymology-play: findom, femdom, wisdom. Well, we do have the phrase "where the magic happens" and the church has a long history of disapproving of this sort of thing, whether that means magic or "magic" :p These alternative ways of deriving a word that imply a very different meaning are a lot of fun. One of my favorites is that in the second era Mistborn novels there's a large region known as the Roughs, and the demonym is Roughian (and yes, they do have a reputation for being ruffians) :D
Never mind, Rob. Jess is clearly no Stone Roses fan. That spot of word shenanigans was deserving of a better reception, if only for your shamelessness in shoe-horning it into the conversation!
Oh, @@CheeseWyrm I thought Rob's original was contrived, then Jess ramped up the cringe factor but now YOU have stretched wordplay beyond the limits of its definition. Which makes it all the funnier of course :D By the way, I wish I'd thought of the name CheeseWyrm before you! Wonderful!
In German, aside from a nightmare being called Alptraum, we actually also have the word Nachtmahr, which would be the literal translation for nightmare. In the past, it was used the same way as the English word nightmare, but now it refers more directly to the demon or creature that scares you at night or sits on people's chest during sleep paralysis.
Your Towel reference to the late great Douglas Adams reminds me of "The meaning of liff" [ yes L-I-double F] and "The deeper meaning of liff", in which underused words are united with concepts lacking a name - very funny.
Another example of an 'f' pluralised to 'v' is Tolkien's: 1 Elf or 2 Elves. Tolkien interestingly discussed that the plural of Dwarf should be Dwarrow (hence Moria being also known as Dwarrowdelf), but he settled for the common use of 'Dwarves' in Westron
A bit uncanny, but I literally was just reading his treatment of “dwarves” vs “dwarfs” last night, finishing up my reading of LOTR, feeling obligated to read the appendices. I then started the Silmarillion. Given that one of my colleagues is a renowned Tolkien scholar, it’s sad that this was my first complete reading of LOTR.
@@sluggo206 Yes & no. I have seen 'elfs' used. I felt it was an interesting example to add to the list Rob gave in discussing the pluralisation of '....f...' I say interesting because 1/ it's Tolkien! 2/ in the same book he has the distinctive Dwarf/Dwarrow/Dwarfs/Dwarves dilemma 😉
Tolkien had to have strong words with his publisher to stop them "correcting" his "Elves" to "Elfs". He firmly told them that, as a professor of language, he knew what he was doing and used the spelling quite deliberately.
MAYBE a "foupe" could be when your joke is so dry that it passes as idle comment. Only minutes prior Rob had dropped the hilarious, "I want to be a Dord (adored)" joke which sailed through the conversation entirely friction-free! 😂
@@davidtraveller *Romanes eunt domus!* ? And I thought education was one of the things the Romans did for us!?! It's *Romani ite domum* ! Now wash it off & write it correctly 100 times!
So, if you could shapeshift into a guy who's good at hiding in crowds, would that make you a Werewally (or Werewaldo if you're in Canada) ? Would the book about you be called "Where's Werewally?" ?
I love that quote by Terry Pratchett that Jess mentioned. I'm going to think of that and say something like "Alakazam!" whenever I turn on my TV from now on. It really is amazing that I can watch a Tennessee football game being played in Knoxville from the comfort of my home in Memphis.
Both wolves and bears are rare sightings in the wild. Wolves rarer. While a bear might watch you out of interest, generally if a wolf, or wolves hear you about, they will leave and you will never get to see them. I have had a bunch of bear encounters, mostly of them being scared out of their wits.
It's originally a Celtic celebration so the tradition is much stronger in the North and West of Britain and in Ireland. But for a long time it was swallowed up by Guy Fawkes Night, which occurs only a few nights later. But Halloween was transplanted to the USA by immigrants, and the traditions were then reintroduced to the UK through American films and TV, so many people mistakenly thought that Halloween was a foreign import to GB.
There was a 52-page book published in 1634 titled Hocus Pocus Junior: The Anatomie of Legerdemain. It is the earliest known example of a book that teaches how to perform magic tricks. It is still in print.
omg, first you refer to the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy and then you quote my favorite author terry pratchett - gone too soon -, can it get any better? you guys are now officially my two favorite people!
Welcome back, the weeks feel more whole again. Nice to know Rob was such a fan of South Park that he became Towelie. Just last week I looked up where will o' the wisp comes from, because it's been in video games and everywhere, this time in Opeth song title. It was nothing like I expected it to mean. Back in time when too good of sleight of hand made you burned at stake. The whole vampire history is really scary, like the amount of people buried alive by accident. It's also really interesting how a lot of these gruesome stories/historical figures came from Hungarian empire. Like Vlad Tepes and Elizabeth Bathory. Romania back then was also part of Hungary as far as I understand. I never knew density was D or d, in my lifetime it's always been ρ. Which is sort of fascinating. A lot of quantities like that we use greek letters for in the western world, but then there's something like dimensions, for example diameter that gets the D or d. In particular engineering if you have two cylindrical measures inside each other like pipe surfaces or a piston, d is the smaller (inner) diameter and D is the outer (bigger) diameter. When actually did the greek letters become common (again) in math/physics? Because I assume after the middle ages every scientist used their own letters (which is so fun when you're trying to decipher science because depending on who and where, they used different symbols), but now there's a clear unspoken rule about what to use. Like in trigonometry the angles are usually counting from the beginning α β γ φ and θ, and in mechanical engineering you start having all the quantities have a greek letter like shear force τ and tension σ, angular rate ω, a factor matrix for structural analysis is called κ at times, in some contexts the angle is always θ but if it's a measure of how much something has been turned it's more likely φ. Then you have like efficiency ratio η and some coordinate axis for cross-sectional areas for calculating moment of inertia etc are something like ζ ς ξ. And the list goes on. Rob doesn't need to be scared about wolves much, if you just let them know of your presence they avoid you like plague. I don't really have scary stories, other than my dad was watching Sleepy Hollow movie (headless rider in Finnish) when I was a kid and I saw just a bit of it and saw nightmares for weeks. And it really wasn't even scary, at least the stuff I saw. But it's a good spooky character. Then my parents would always keep us behaving by saying there's Näkki/Knäcken (a bit like Kappa from Japan) in the block of flats hallway so we would keep our mouths shut and not bother people in the evening when passing the hallway. It made no sense since it's some sort of water spirit/monster in like lakes or rivers or something. Ironically now there's a condom product called Näkki.
The German term "Alp" which Rob translated into "Elve" made my German mind spin into "What he just said?" because "Alp" was actually refering to all sorts of "Evil nightmare Ghosts/Demons/creatures" and one of those was for instance "der Nachtmar" = literally "Nightmare" but also the "Krampus" was one of those, and that´s the reason for the term "Alptraum" but which due to a - in my view totally senseless - orthography reform which happened in the early 1990ties, nowadays is spelled with "b" instead of originally with "p" = "senseless" because that change from "Alptraum" into now "Albtraum" is removing the original root for the meaning of "Alp" in "Alptraum" which was refering to nightmare demons. Another reference for that meaning of "Alp" is the "burlesque theater play" (in German such play is called "Posse" which has nothing to do with the English term "posse" but means "burlesque comedy") written by Ferdinand Raimund titeled "Der Alpenkönig und der Menschenfeind" /the Alp-King and the misanthrope" written in the early19th century/premiere in 1828 = "Alpenkönig" didn´t mean "The King of the mountainrange called the alps" but "The King of the nightmare ghosts/spirits and demons". (By the way in the pagan past pagan people but also till to the recent christian past but then highly supersticious people believed that "high up in the alpine mountain range" there was the home of the nightmare demons, and also the home for all other sorts of "demons of nature" who were causing avalanches and rockfall and all other "unpleasant things which were a nightmare" when happened in a moutainous area = so there is a very old connection since ancient times between "the term Alps for that mountain range" and derived from that or derived vice versa "Alps for nightmare demons" anyway). Although in that play "the Alpenkönig" is actually the positive character whose name in the play is "Astragalus" (which is by the way a self-expaining name because it is the name of a "healing plant", and the Alpenkönig is about "to heal" the misanthrope from his misanthropy) and Astragalus is helping the misanthrope´s daughter to marry her love and the misanthrope is so to say the negative counterpart with the name "von Rappelkopf" (that name is also already self-explaining because "Rappelkopf" is the "fun-term" for a "stubbern, egocentric + choleric character) who is against that marriage but then got tricked by the Alpenkönig by putting the misanthrope into a personal nightmare (= putting people into nightmares is what the Alpenkönig always did and does, because he is the King of all nightmare demons= "the King of the Alps") building a setup which brought the misanthrope to the edge of despair and he almost committed suicide (but that´s not played out in a dramatic way because it is a comedy so that all is played out in a comedic way) which flipped the mindset of the misanthrope to become a philanthrope at the end and therefore his daughter is then allowed to marry her love = played out in a typical cutesy "All´s well that ends well" manner..
I just now read your comment. What I was wondering about, is whether "Alptraum" or "Albtraum" was first and then was quenched through the orthography reform. As far as I know it is vice versa to what you stated. "Albtraum" became accepted to be written as "Alptraum" as well because the phonetics are (almost) the same. While I was struggling in my childhood to don't get the wrong writing, it has been simplified and nowadays both versions are accepted. Hence "Alb" is an older version of elves it clearly does not remove - quote: the original root for the meaning [...] which was refering to nightmare demons. End of quote.
@@heinosackmann5599 Sorry but no..Albtraum is not older. 1. I have a library with over 1000 books with many books published before the 1990ties = 20th century + 19th century + some print copies from even earlier centuries in "Kurrentschrift/German cursive which was the writing style of the 17th -19th century" and till the 1990ties it was never ever written "Albtraum" in any publication not even once but only solely "Alptraum". 2. I´m almost 60 years old, and simply know that "Alptraum" was the correct way to write it at my time in school, and to write "Albtraum" was wrong and therefore got always corrected by the teacher. And I can also remember - vividly - how the orthography of Alptraum then changed into Albtraum in the early 90ties. "Vividly" because that pissed me off heavily at that time. And according to "elves" those were no thing at all in German literature/mythology, Elves" in the sense of "Alb" = "nightmare creature" those are figures of Nordic literature/mythology and English literature/celtic mythology who got just translated into German as "Alb" in order to avoid to mix it up with the German term "Elfe" which are "pixies" and "fairies"..and that happened way after the printing press was invented and the cultural exchange with foreign "printed book" started to become a thing. But it might be that in the German Northsea regions "Alb" might was a thing even way before the printing press due to the contact with Danes who are part of Nordic Culture but that is now me speculating. But if that is the case then "Alb" is a "Low German term/Niederdeutsch" but "Alp" is not at all.. "Alp" in written form is around since the early medi eval times and was for describing "nightmare demons" as a "general term= umbrella term" because that´s what "Alp" actually is and always was = "an Old High German umbrella term for obscure creatures which are frightening"..And "Old High German" was the language in the South /Alpine regions = totally different German Culture back then in comparision with the German North of that time...and Modern German is heavily influenced by "Old High German" and that´s why it is also colloquially called "Hochdeutsch" although the correct right linguistic term for "Modern German" is actually "Standard Deutsch" and if the strong influence of Old High German wouldn´t be the case and wouldn´t happened but Low German would had became the predominant German language then we German speakers would speak "Dutch" instead.
17:36 You say "science looks a lot like magic until you know the functions behind it" and then quote Terry Pratchett. It reminded me of another related quote by A. C. Clarke: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" 😊
@CheeseWyrm that's actually one I need to get into. Done all Discworld, and a few of Pratchett's other books(Nation & Dodger) but I still need to get those books
18:27 hocus pocus, hokey pokey? Any connection? I've read ice cream salesmen would yell hokey pokey while pushing their cart before the song was a thing. Early 19th century.
My Scottish friends, most aged 70+, tell me that Hallowe'en has always been big in Scotland, and that theymade _turnip lanterns_ , using neeps - what we in England would call swedes. As a lad in Yorkshire in the '50s we did some halowe'en things, but the focus was on roast-a-catholic night on 5th Nov, with mischief night being 4th. In many ways the North of England is culturally closer to Scotland than the sarfeast. Perhaps that's 'cos the sarfeast has no culture.
In the part about the word monster it was mentioned it meant to show. I now know where the word demonstrate comes from. I am a word nerd (dord?😊) so I love this TH-cam and Rob Words. I am also looking forward to reading Jess's books too.
I know it is a German thing, but we have the Valpurgisnacht we’re witches dance and then there is the Heitschibumbeitschi who steals little babies or their mothers respectively.
You know, Jess, there is a pretty solid "fan theory" (I guess) that postulates Quincey Morris was a thrall of Dracula the whole time. You can google the theory but I think it goes a good way towards explaining his weirdness. Quincey is, aside from Dracula himself, the only other main character to not leave a written record in the tale.
Ooh, I now need to re-read & assess such speculation. I just figured he was 'non-player character' if you will. Someone who was there to provide some physicality/brawn when needed. If indeed this Quincy-thralldom is possible - then it opens a prospective new plotline for a Dracula sequel (especially as it's now public domain). MUCH EXCITEMENT !
Jess completely missed Rob’s pun about wanting to “be a dord”. We adore you, Rob!
@@wes643 the blushing over ghoulies! Ah, the perils of fair skin.
The subtle disappointment in his face made me actually laugh out loud
Argh, I missed it too!
She wasn't a Stone Roses fan.
I noticed that too! Your wish is granted, @RobWords, you are a-dord by all your fans.
OMG, I'm so glad you guys are back! Of course I understand you need breaks, we all do, however, I really missed you and it's so good to have an intelligent laugh about language again! Thank you so much!
Thanks for sticking with us while we were away! 🥰
So agree with you arwenwestrop5404, missed them and the humour is so entertaining, and the content is intelligent. Thank you 👍👍⭐⭐
Every time odd or fake words and Johnson's dictionary come up I'm invariable reminded of the Blackadder episode where Blackadder keeps making up words, and Johnson seems to need to add them. My heartiest contrafibularities on the return of your podcast!
Aye, whoever put Haggrid in charge of the dictionary caused me great pericombobulation! ;)
Favourite episode!
I ran across a story about "grunge" that is similar. When Nirvana blew up, a US national magazine/newspaper sent a journalist to write a story about the Seattle music scene and started by interviewing employees at a local record store. A staffer at the store said a co-worker just made up "grunge" slang to tell the journalist and the journalist too lazy to care printed it without doublechecking.
Douglas Adams AND Terry Pratchett in this episode?!?! OUTSTANDING!
I love the story that the wonderful Dorothy Parker, attending a Halloween Party, when told that people in the next room were “ducking for apples” replied, “There, but for a typographical error, is the story of my life!” 😂
Best laugh all day -thanks!
Bobbing for apples is a lot harder in the modern day because we've cultivated larger apples than would have existed in centuries past.
@@Darxide23 and they NEVER leave the stalks on!
Good point. I never even came close to thinking about that.
iPhones don't float either.
And now for the sports scores. Manchester three, Nosfera two.
Badump bump crashhhhh GROAN...
Babylon 5, deep space 9
BB8, artoodee, 2
Space 1999 space oddysey 2001 (local derby there)
Apollo 11, shoemaker levy 9
Johnson’s ‘foupe’ immediately pointed to the memorable Spoonerism ‘One Swell Foop.’
I suffer badly from Roonerspisms! ;)
@@CheeseWyrm The zpismatic effect should not be dimsissed lightly. It is not to be szeened at!
"bone-fire" is a revelation. I always thought the "bon" came from the French, as in "good".
Snap! I thought the same. Although, now I suppose it does make more sense!
But…bones *are* good.
@@VIRACYTV and the marrow (if properly cooked) is oh so tasty!
Born when I was (1950s) for the first few years of my life I thought it was bomb fire. In fact we all called it 'bommy night'. It took me even longer to realise that the 'debry' my parents kicked me out of the house to play on (a flattened area opposite, covered in cinders and bits of broken brick) was in fact debris. :o)
Same. Especially as bonfires can happen any time of the year
(edited to add)
Or is that just in the US?
A friend of ours had a "ghost " name when he served in the military. When he enlisted he told the recruiter his name was JR and was asked what that stood for and he said, "nothing-it's just J only and R only. His enlistment was issued for Jonly Ronly.
That's an old story. My parents told it to me about somebody dad served with in WWII.
@@MKei-nr5tl I am an old person and the person who told me was JR...
When discussing the origins of 'werewolf', surely a validation of 'were' meaning 'man' is found with the AngloSaxon word 'weregild' (or 'wergild') - which means 'man-price', the value set on the life of a slain person, paid to their lord or kin. It's funny that Jess referenced Beowulf, as weregild is mentioned in that work.
EDIT: apologies for I've just discovered others have priorly mentioned this :)
"Wer(e) and wif" are also found in several places meaning "man and woman." Makes too much sense! - Jess
Also 'were-eld' or 'age of man' -= 'world'.
There's (possibly) no need for "wifwolf" as until fairly recently, using the word for "man" to mean "human" (of either gender) was common and acceptable. In "werewolf" this would be completely logical.
I was going to leave a comment about how a site dedicated to the knowledge of all things witches could be called Wiccapedia. But apparently it’s such a great idea there’s already a site and book called that.
😂😂😂
That's almost as good as the Star Wars counterpart, Wookieepedia.
Hahaha
When Jess mentioned men witches, I suddenly got hungry for sloppy joes. (I'll show myself out.)
Cue Rob looking culturally confused.
You’ve lost me
@@jonathanfinan722
Sloppy joes are a sort of thick meat sauce between two hamburger buns for a quick, messy meal. A commercial canned version of this is called “Manwich” (supposedly because it’s a manly food): thus “men witch” and “Manwich.” I must say this same pun occurred to me also.
Not worthy of a rimshot; total groaner.
Yer not alone, buddy. That was my first thought too!
Apart from the content on language, which I find very interesting, I love the banter between the two of you, thank you both!
Yes, in this episode there seemed to be a little more time for personal anecdotes & reflections. I like Jess & Rob, so I'm happy for such rambles :)
Jess, you left rob hanging, he wants to be "a Dord"!
More or less than the dord of water?
Or, to paraphrase a certain donkey, "Look at me, I'm a Dord!"
I whooshed that adordable reference/pun so hard! Truly very dord of me-in the density sense, of course. - Jess
My favourite related Terry Pratchett "quote" is a false derivation of "wizard" which he described as "wise arse"
He was an absolute master of the English language.
I mean, "arse" aside, that isn't entirely wrong in spirit. Etymologically, "wizard" is the word "wise" with the intensifying prefix -ard on it, but that -ard usually makes words into pejoratives (e.g., dullard, drunkard, buzzard, bastard). I'd wager he was aware of that when he made that joke! - Jess
"Gooden day, big feller mine host! Trois beers pour favour, avec us, silver plate"
"Garkon? Mucho vino avec zei, grassy ass"
Not too far off the mark, linguistically. That pretty little bird, the wheatear is actually derived from white arse.
The talk about wisdom and magic reminded me of Arthur C. Clarke's Third Law. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
"His little marble goolies"- Philomena Cunk regarding Michelangelo's David.
Though I am not so bold as to offer categorical assertions regarding the vowel values that were in use in English and in Hindi when गोली (golee) became goolie, it seems that there is some benefit to be derived from the drift in pronunciation. We would prefer to keep some distance between the idea of shooting goolies and that of shooting goalies.
She is a treasure.
@@harryburleigh8358 No doubt, that's why ice hockey goal tenders where all that padding . . . protect their goalies because they are tender.
Go ahead. Say "goolie" with a Canadian accent then tell me I'm wrong.
He even has eyeballs - like a Furby!
Can't go wrong with a couple of wordsmiths (nerdsmiths?) who casual quote Terry Pratchett during a discourse on word meanings and origins. 10/10, would (will) watch/listen again. 👍
Yayyy!! You're BACK!
Thank you Kwan!! ♥
In Dutch, the word ‘geest’ still exists alongside ‘spook’ and can be used somewhat interchangeably, though geest is also used to describe spirit and/or the things that gives life to something/somebody, metaphorically speaking. Spook is used almost exclusively to refer to a ghost.
Yes, was looking for this comment :) I love how 'geest' can be turned into 'geestig' which would directly translate to spiritually or ghostly, but actually means 'funny' in Dutch!
@@MercuryBlether And then there is 'geest in de fles' which corresponds more to a genie (and in one specific case, Jeannie).
We all want to be adored, Rob.
Lanterns were carved from turnips (swede) in Scotland in my youth, much to my mother's annoyance. I have knackered SO many spoons making them!😂 Oh, the smell of burning neeps!
Not only Scotland. I remember my mum carving one for me in the 60s, and that was in Lincolnshire.
I remember carved turnips in my childhood in the 50's.
my family carved swedes right into the early 90's in Dorset as pumpkins were just not available
We should call that event "HollowNeeps" ;)
I thought neeps/swedes were rutabagas, not turnips.
The dord of interesting information in these videos is amazing!
I definitely think we should normalize "dord" as a word for figurative density! It works so well. - Jess
It's funny but in physics classes we were always encouraged to use the Greek letter 'rho' as a symbol for density, not 'd'.
The 'Words From Hell' paperback is the only thing on my Christmas list! :)
I hope you derive devilish pleasure from its pages! 😈 - Jess
@@WordsUnravelled 😆
You will be glad to know that "FOUP" is now a common word (albeit an acronym) in modern semiconductor (microchip) manufacturing factories ("fab" from "fabricate"). A "FOUP" is a Front-Opening Universal Pod. A plastic box that is used to contain, protect and transport typically 25 silicon wafers (usually 12 inches / 300mm in diameter).
Also, the spoonerism "one swell foop" (foupe) for "one fell swoop".
Any book titled 'Words From Hell" is an absolute must-read for this old pedantic grammarphile. I'll go look for it now!
Arthur C Clarke: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"
He was Not Wrong
This little device I'm using to watch this video (my phone) would have made me seem a sorcerer even a century ago...
@@stevetournay6103
Fifty years ago they would think you are an alien
I've been wondering when y'all was gonna pop up.
Nice way to spend my wake up time.
Y'all and a cuppa.
I made myself a cup of tea to sit down with this video specifically!
Does cuppa mean cup of tea
@@hooninnpoonin3904
It does indeed.
In Finnish, the word for nightmare is "painajainen" which comes from the word "painaa" which means to press, or "painaja" which means "one who presses". So "painajainen" could loosely be translated as a creature or spirit or being that presses.
From what I understand, the feeling of being pressed is related to sleep paralysis, which is a common human experience, so it makes sense that a lot of languages would have a close association with their word for nigthmares or bad sleep and bad dreams, and the feeling of being pressed by someone. Many cultures have ascribed the feeling to some sort of evil ghost that visits during the night and presses on people.
Like incubi!
This has also been attributed to the modern phenomenon of Alian abduction. I assume the ghostly figure just changes with the times.
Huh, I'd never thought of it, but the Spanish for nightmare (pesadilla) probably also comes from weight (peso). Funny how that snuck up on me.
@@jsa-z1722or succubi!
@@ThePsyko420 Aye, both mentioned by Jess :)
We had Devil's Night in Detroit. I was a well-behaved child, but even I went out and vandalized houses and cars, and I considered it harmless fun.
It's always a good day when Jess and Rob post! Rob definitely needs to work on his decorations, more a comical ghost than scary.
That lil ghost is doing its best! 🥺😆 - Jess
Hey, Rob strikes me as a Scaree, not a Scarer ;)
EDIT: Jess on the other hand ... 😗
I first came to see more of Jess's mesmerising eyes. I stayed for the scintillating conversation between Jess and Rob. High on my list of entertaining and educational channels.
hrt smile is just as great
Where I grew up in Michigan, the night before Halloween was called Devil's night.
Yep. Same across the river in southern Ontario...
There is also 'weregild', which was the price you paid to a man's family after you killed him.
"My bad" *coins clink*
I'm not positive, but I think weregild was used in The Lord of the Rings novels. I have the books & the audiobooks (& the movies)- I'll have to look that up coz now it's gonna drive me mad!
@@beverlykrebs4372 Hmm, I don't recall that. IF any Middle-Earth culture did apply weregild, it was likely the Rohirrim
@@beverlykrebs4372 Isildur said that he would take the One Ring as weregild for the deaths of his father and brother (Elendil and Anarion) in Peter Jackson's film The Fellowship of the Ring. I don't remember the same line from the books.
@@markstott6689 YES! Now I remember! As many times as I've watched those dvds, you'd think I would instantly remember that! Advice for the day... DON'T GET OLD!! 😂
Rob 😂 you with that quick quip and also great Stone Roses reference "I wanna be a Dord” it took me a second to register it too.
There wolf...there castle
We're Werewolves, not Swear-Wolves
“Roll, roll, roll in the hay”
Why are you talking like that?
@@locodiver8665 Because they like Young Frankenstein, the movie.
Would you accept Lupine Apparel?
'Mischief nights seem to be more widespread.
A while ago, my dad told me that in Austria (Salzburg to be more precise), there used to be a tradition that on the eve of a certain Saint's day (I forget which), teenagers would go around stealing stuff from people's gardens. In particular, they would go for furniture, prompting people to tie these down as best they could beforehand.
When I was a kid, "Devil's Night" in Detroit involved a lot of arson and other property destruction.
@@arcuscotangens Saint Walpurga's Eve. The night of April 30th to May 1st. The actual witches' night. All Hallows' Eve is the night of the restless dead. And the tradition pretty much died out in the late '90s because of old people (particularly those moving from cities into formerly rural, newly quasi-suburban areas) complaining about it being a nuisance and claiming (rarely real) property damage, just in time to be effectively replaced by Anglo-American Hallowe'en traditions, which largely the very same old people then complained about being a nuisance, foreign, and commercial=fake. Party poopers.
In Bavaria that's called Freinacht. Traditionally the "stealing" isn't about keeping the stuff for yourself but rather to move it to a place where it is obvious to spot but rather hard to retrieve from. The classic example is the garden gate put on a roof. Really damaging stuff at least isn't intentional.
@@xenialafleur I was trying to remember that name! Featured as part of classic version of The Crow.
From what I have read, "sleep paralysis" happens when your mind awakens before your body so you feel as if you are trapped because your body cannot move because it's still asleep.
There's probably some kind of puritanical explanation of wet dreams in there, like if a man ejaculated while asleep or had an erection when he woke up, he would say a succubus caused it.
No one has pointed out the irony of Rob and Jess wearing Christmas colors to do do a Halloween themed show.
Growing up In Detroit, the Night Before Halloween was called Devil's Night.
All the usual destructive Mischief would happen as well as the burning down of vacant houses of which Detroit had a lot of.
Also from Detroit, and I've never heard of "Mischief Night". It was always "Devil's Night" for me too.
Based of the numbering systems of Decimal (base 10) and Octal (base 8) their wardrobe is appropriate because Dec 25 is the same as Oct 31! Spooky!
'i once went as a duvet... my mother didn't let me cut holes in the sheet' HA
fun episode, thanks you two!
The pumpkin is technically a fruit and a vegetable, of course, because of how it begins as a flower and how it's used as a vegetable.
I spent a few years in Switzerland (French part) nearly 20 years ago. US-style Halloween was just coming into fashion, but they didn't know quite what to do. We had kids coming to our door for treats throughout the week up to Oct 31.
Hi Guys... sorry... just to say that in my youth in Ireland in the 1970's "trick or treat" at Halloween didn't exist, yes we played games and such but the modern going around the neighbours for gifts or treats was done on St. Stephan's Day (26th Dec) and was called "Hunting the Wren"... similar to Halloween but on a different day
Ah, that makes me think of a Christmas album I heard long ago which had a song on it called The Wren about that. May have been The Chieftains' Bells Of Dublin...
So more like Scandinavian julebukk then?
It comes from the medieval tradition of giving alms to the poor on feast days, and because they didn't want something for nothing they'd pray for their benefactors in return.
This is attested not only on All Soul's Eve and Christmas Eve, but on other Feast Days throughout the year.
This tradition was largely abolished in Protestant countries following the Reformation, although some of the traditions associated with Halloween begin to crop up again in Britain following the Restoration, although a week later on Guy Fawkes Night.
The medieval Halloween traditions were preserved in Catholic Ireland and were reintroduced to Britain and introduced into America in the 19th and 20th Centuries with increased emigration to those countries following the potato famine. The tradition further spread in Britain with the popularity of American culture, especially through TV and Movies.
The Christmas Carolling tradition was resurrected in the Victorian period, largely due to the spread of literacy and publication, under the influence of the Royal Family and authors like Charles Dickens.
A good source for all this is "Stations in the Sun", an accessible but also quite academic book by Professor Ronald Hutton.
Rob mentioned mischief night before Halloween. Some parts of the U.S. use that term, but in Detroit it was called Devil's Night and became infamous for several arsons in the city every year. In recent times this trend has subsided.
You forgot Bogieman, literally Man with a Sack, a story parents told kids to keep them in bed, no matter what noises they hear in the night. Wink
Does that share an etymological root with 'Burglar' perhaps ?
@@CheeseWyrm lovely idea, but separate latin roots! 👍
Wait, that's why Oogie-Boogie looks the way he looks? 🤯
@@Quasihamster I’d assume so! Makes you wonder what’s in that bag/body, eh? 🤣
“Mischief Night” was called “Devils Night” when I lived in Detroit. Beyond soap bars writing on cars… downtown tended to burn vacant houses. This night went on a lot longer than other places
I love making random connections to my own language when listening to you guys. I was completely surprised when I heard Rob saying the French work 'cauchemar', cause it sounds almost exaclly like Polish 'koszmar', which I assume was borrowed from French. And now I know it's etymology!
I’m not sure how true this is, but I heard that this word is also related to the name of the Slavic goddess Mara, which, in turn, is related to such Ukrainian words as примара, марити. And all of these words seem to be derived from the Indo-European *mar or *mor meaning “death”. I hope someone more knowledgeable than me will be able to confirm or deny this theory.
A stag do in Manchester can be a lot more frightening than hearing wolf jaws go "SNAP"!
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”, Arthur C Clarke.
I'm old enough that when I was a child, Halloween still had an apostrophe in it, even in the US. But now my dictionary doesn't even have that as a variant. I tell my students that, and they look at me like that's the craziest thing they've ever heard.
What do you mean “we used to have mischief night”? It’s very much a thing around our way in West/North Yorkshire. Egging, knocking on doors, pinching milk bottles and washing etc. It was certainly positively encouraged when I was a nipper.
Yep - eggs and flour still taken off the shelves round where I grew up in south Wales
I’ve recently read “Words From Hell”, and since I’ve been watching this channel, I read it in Jess’s voice.
Mischief night is called Cabbage night here (New England). TP houses, smash pumpkins, burn a barn… yah, those were the days.
Wow! I’m in Connecticut & hadn’t heard about Cabbage Night. New knowledge!!
Uncertain if this was a local term to my neighborhood or all throughout North West NJ but Mischief Night was referred to as Goosey Night circa mid to late 70s. I haven't done any deep investigation into it but I have gotten strange looks when telling people this in other parts of the state and country.
@@tracy3812 just a bit further north and yup. They don’t seem to do it much now. Not like when we were kids in the 80’s.
My ex was from Ohio, where they called it Devil's Night.
Bobbing for apples is ridiculously difficult - unless you are a vampire or werewolf, where those fangs really help!
If you don't mind getting wet, pushing it to the bottom of the tub works.
Hoc est enim corpus meum: "For this is my body." That was the derivation of hocus hocus that I learned years ago As you said, it was a Protestant jab against the Roman Catholic belief in transubstantiation.
There is the hawking term, “one fell swoop” as in a predatory fast dive to snare prey. To rush in hastily and fall mightily on one’s face or other embarrassing position was, “one swell foop”, a Spoonerism implying the “faux pas” and the embarrassment surrounding it.
Absolutely nothing for the brilliant Stone Roses quote at 25:13
Glad i wasn't the only one 😀
I don't think the Stone Roses are in Jess's lexicon.
It was an excellent under the radar quip
Pertaining to ghost stories, one of my personal favorites pertains to the tragic crash of AA flight 191 in Chicago. To this day, the field where it crashed is said to be haunted by noises, odd lights, and apparitions smelling of gasoline asking about baggage and connecting flights.
A close second is Heathrow's "Man with briefcase."
Anything with a hat is a fruit, since the hat part is the stem of the flower, and a fruit is either something that grows out of or around the flower. Berries have hats, tree fruits like bananas have a hat, etc. That's also why tomatos and cucumbers are technically fruits.
A banana is considered an herb in botanical terms because it never forms a woody stem (or trunk) the way a tree does. Rather, it forms a succulent stalk or pseudostem. However because the fruit is produced from a single ovary on the flower, a banana is actually classified as a berry, botanically speaking.
I always go with the botanical use of “fruit”. As such, there are plenty of non-sweet fruits: pumpkins, avocados, olives.
@@georgesibley7152 A berry is a type of fruit. The basic separation is just fruits and vegetables. You can then have additional categories within each. That's why nuts are types of fruit.
Vegetables are anything not related to the flower. Usually, leaves or roots, sometimes stems/stalks like with celery.
@@litigioussociety4249 which is why broccoli is a fruit
and Banana is a fruit from a herb
The "knowledge is magic" theme in language is such a fun one. In Finnish pre-Christian beliefs, one word for a magic user is a tietäjä, which literally means "knower" as in one who knows stuff. As a kid I would dig into any science I could, from earth sciences to astronomy, and the word "tieteilijä" was used a lot to describe me, which roughly means scientist (well, more often you'll hear tiedemies which means "science man" specifically - for a genderless language, we put the word man in an awful lot of places). It's an agent word, and the verb it comes from is "tieteillä" which is a frequentative form of "tiede" (science), so "tieteillä" breaks down as "to dabble in science repeatedly" and "tieteilijä" breaks down as "someone in the habit of doing science" (hence it's got a bit more of a dabbler-type connotation than "tiedemies").
But there's another word that if you made a frequentative form of it, would form that same word: "tietää" (to know) would also become "tieteillä." If you made the agent noun "tieteilijä" from that, it would break down as "someone in the habit of knowing stuff." And it's this second possible interpretation of it that I love, it's like a little knower, a dabbler in the knowing arts, a wizard-to-be, very fitting as I've grown to be obsessed with fantasy and magic in my adulthood, and one of my WIP story ideas has a magic system that involves knowing real-world science :D
(yes, my choice of the word "wizard" was on purpose to reference the wise origin of that word)
Speaking of wise things, here's a bit of... not exactly wordplay, more like etymology-play: findom, femdom, wisdom. Well, we do have the phrase "where the magic happens" and the church has a long history of disapproving of this sort of thing, whether that means magic or "magic" :p
These alternative ways of deriving a word that imply a very different meaning are a lot of fun. One of my favorites is that in the second era Mistborn novels there's a large region known as the Roughs, and the demonym is Roughian (and yes, they do have a reputation for being ruffians) :D
Proto Germanic/Old English for "man," as used in "weregild (man-price or man-gold)."
My HS English teacher explained it as “life insurance” when she taught Beowulf to us.
@@tracy3812 So .... Insurance Agents can literally be called WereWolves !
"To dry with a sudden impetuosity." Oh my god, i am rolling. That's so hilarious.🤣😭🤣
Oh I missed that. What's the timestamp please?
Never mind, Rob. Jess is clearly no Stone Roses fan. That spot of word shenanigans was deserving of a better reception, if only for your shamelessness in shoe-horning it into the conversation!
You might even say I "D'ohed" it when Rob declared his wish to be a-dord! - Jess
Isn't that a Ramones song?
"20, 20, 24 hrs ago oh oh .... I wanna be a-Dorded!" ;)
Oh, @@CheeseWyrm I thought Rob's original was contrived, then Jess ramped up the cringe factor but now YOU have stretched wordplay beyond the limits of its definition. Which makes it all the funnier of course :D By the way, I wish I'd thought of the name CheeseWyrm before you! Wonderful!
In German, aside from a nightmare being called Alptraum, we actually also have the word Nachtmahr, which would be the literal translation for nightmare. In the past, it was used the same way as the English word nightmare, but now it refers more directly to the demon or creature that scares you at night or sits on people's chest during sleep paralysis.
26:32 one swell foop
The history of the vampire myth pre Dracula is quite interesting
Your Towel reference to the late great Douglas Adams reminds me of "The meaning of liff" [ yes L-I-double F] and "The deeper meaning of liff", in which underused words are united with concepts lacking a name - very funny.
Budby!
I own that book. One of my favourite entries is "Toronto".
I got behind listening to your podcast. Thank you for having a podcast that is so calming to listen to.
Perhaps the origin of Werewolf comes from a shortening of 'Weregild-Wolf', ie: a wolf that has taken the life of a valued man/person ?
This was my favourite episode yet! I always enjoy this podcast! Thank you for making it!
Another example of an 'f' pluralised to 'v' is Tolkien's: 1 Elf or 2 Elves.
Tolkien interestingly discussed that the plural of Dwarf should be Dwarrow (hence Moria being also known as Dwarrowdelf), but he settled for the common use of 'Dwarves' in Westron
Isn't 'elves' the normal plural of 'elf"? Like knife/knives.
A bit uncanny, but I literally was just reading his treatment of “dwarves” vs “dwarfs” last night, finishing up my reading of LOTR, feeling obligated to read the appendices. I then started the Silmarillion. Given that one of my colleagues is a renowned Tolkien scholar, it’s sad that this was my first complete reading of LOTR.
@@sluggo206 Yes & no. I have seen 'elfs' used. I felt it was an interesting example to add to the list Rob gave in discussing the pluralisation of '....f...'
I say interesting because 1/ it's Tolkien! 2/ in the same book he has the distinctive Dwarf/Dwarrow/Dwarfs/Dwarves dilemma 😉
Tolkien had to have strong words with his publisher to stop them "correcting" his "Elves" to "Elfs". He firmly told them that, as a professor of language, he knew what he was doing and used the spelling quite deliberately.
We need a video of Jess's full rant on Bram Stoker's Dracula!
Trick or Treat feels like it came from Mischief Night with added extortion.
I reckon! "Hands up & give us all the candy!"
As a born on Halloween witchy person, I loved this episode …. I can amuse so many people next birthday!
MAYBE a "foupe" could be when your joke is so dry that it passes as idle comment. Only minutes prior Rob had dropped the hilarious, "I want to be a Dord (adored)" joke which sailed through the conversation entirely friction-free! 😂
The USA didn't need lerts in the same way Britain did, during the war. So it's not instilled into them from an early age.
so fun I listened to it twice! 👏🏿👏🏿And the little floating ghosts at the beginning are super cute
@2:58 “and then the Romans rolled in” LOL, Now there’s history encapsulated.
Romanes eunt domus!
@@davidtraveller *Romanes eunt domus!* ? And I thought education was one of the things the Romans did for us!?! It's *Romani ite domum* ! Now wash it off & write it correctly 100 times!
To add a personal favorite, monstrance which is "an open or transparent receptacle in which the consecrated Host is exposed for veneration."
49:48 He should have called it "Werechester" to tie it all together. :D
So, if you could shapeshift into a guy who's good at hiding in crowds, would that make you a Werewally (or Werewaldo if you're in Canada) ? Would the book about you be called "Where's Werewally?" ?
I love that quote by Terry Pratchett that Jess mentioned. I'm going to think of that and say something like "Alakazam!" whenever I turn on my TV from now on. It really is amazing that I can watch a Tennessee football game being played in Knoxville from the comfort of my home in Memphis.
Both wolves and bears are rare sightings in the wild. Wolves rarer. While a bear might watch you out of interest, generally if a wolf, or wolves hear you about, they will leave and you will never get to see them. I have had a bunch of bear encounters, mostly of them being scared out of their wits.
Halloween was never celebrated where I lived in Britain; in fact, from the 1950s through the 1990s, we never knew anything about it.
It's originally a Celtic celebration so the tradition is much stronger in the North and West of Britain and in Ireland. But for a long time it was swallowed up by Guy Fawkes Night, which occurs only a few nights later.
But Halloween was transplanted to the USA by immigrants, and the traditions were then reintroduced to the UK through American films and TV, so many people mistakenly thought that Halloween was a foreign import to GB.
One of the things which I enjoy most is observing people doing something they do very well.
There was a 52-page book published in 1634 titled Hocus Pocus Junior: The Anatomie of Legerdemain. It is the earliest known example of a book that teaches how to perform magic tricks. It is still in print.
On the matter of a "good" magic user being referred to as "wise" I would draw attention to the Aborigional Australian English word/concept; Cleverman.
omg, first you refer to the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy and then you quote my favorite author terry pratchett - gone too soon -, can it get any better? you guys are now officially my two favorite people!
Hitchhikers reference!
I love that book (& movie)!
@@beverlykrebs4372 it was originally a BBC radio show. Listened to the broadcast in New Zealand. Fan since then
@@godfreyramsay8857 Oool!
We used to carve turnips in the UK in my youth… still do on the IOM. First I saw of a pumpkin was in a Charlie Brown cartoon.
Aah, blessed are the acolytes of the Great Pumpkin :)
EDIT: And the CheeseMakers!
Welcome back, the weeks feel more whole again. Nice to know Rob was such a fan of South Park that he became Towelie.
Just last week I looked up where will o' the wisp comes from, because it's been in video games and everywhere, this time in Opeth song title. It was nothing like I expected it to mean.
Back in time when too good of sleight of hand made you burned at stake. The whole vampire history is really scary, like the amount of people buried alive by accident. It's also really interesting how a lot of these gruesome stories/historical figures came from Hungarian empire. Like Vlad Tepes and Elizabeth Bathory. Romania back then was also part of Hungary as far as I understand.
I never knew density was D or d, in my lifetime it's always been ρ. Which is sort of fascinating. A lot of quantities like that we use greek letters for in the western world, but then there's something like dimensions, for example diameter that gets the D or d. In particular engineering if you have two cylindrical measures inside each other like pipe surfaces or a piston, d is the smaller (inner) diameter and D is the outer (bigger) diameter. When actually did the greek letters become common (again) in math/physics? Because I assume after the middle ages every scientist used their own letters (which is so fun when you're trying to decipher science because depending on who and where, they used different symbols), but now there's a clear unspoken rule about what to use. Like in trigonometry the angles are usually counting from the beginning α β γ φ and θ, and in mechanical engineering you start having all the quantities have a greek letter like shear force τ and tension σ, angular rate ω, a factor matrix for structural analysis is called κ at times, in some contexts the angle is always θ but if it's a measure of how much something has been turned it's more likely φ. Then you have like efficiency ratio η and some coordinate axis for cross-sectional areas for calculating moment of inertia etc are something like ζ ς ξ. And the list goes on.
Rob doesn't need to be scared about wolves much, if you just let them know of your presence they avoid you like plague.
I don't really have scary stories, other than my dad was watching Sleepy Hollow movie (headless rider in Finnish) when I was a kid and I saw just a bit of it and saw nightmares for weeks. And it really wasn't even scary, at least the stuff I saw. But it's a good spooky character. Then my parents would always keep us behaving by saying there's Näkki/Knäcken (a bit like Kappa from Japan) in the block of flats hallway so we would keep our mouths shut and not bother people in the evening when passing the hallway. It made no sense since it's some sort of water spirit/monster in like lakes or rivers or something. Ironically now there's a condom product called Näkki.
Your episodes are always such a delight! Thank you!
The German term "Alp" which Rob translated into "Elve" made my German mind spin into "What he just said?" because "Alp" was actually refering to all sorts of "Evil nightmare Ghosts/Demons/creatures" and one of those was for instance "der Nachtmar" = literally "Nightmare" but also the "Krampus" was one of those, and that´s the reason for the term "Alptraum" but which due to a - in my view totally senseless - orthography reform which happened in the early 1990ties, nowadays is spelled with "b" instead of originally with "p" = "senseless" because that change from "Alptraum" into now "Albtraum" is removing the original root for the meaning of "Alp" in "Alptraum" which was refering to nightmare demons.
Another reference for that meaning of "Alp" is the "burlesque theater play" (in German such play is called "Posse" which has nothing to do with the English term "posse" but means "burlesque comedy") written by Ferdinand Raimund titeled "Der Alpenkönig und der Menschenfeind" /the Alp-King and the misanthrope" written in the early19th century/premiere in 1828 = "Alpenkönig" didn´t mean "The King of the mountainrange called the alps" but "The King of the nightmare ghosts/spirits and demons".
(By the way in the pagan past pagan people but also till to the recent christian past but then highly supersticious people believed that "high up in the alpine mountain range" there was the home of the nightmare demons, and also the home for all other sorts of "demons of nature" who were causing avalanches and rockfall and all other "unpleasant things which were a nightmare" when happened in a moutainous area = so there is a very old connection since ancient times between "the term Alps for that mountain range" and derived from that or derived vice versa "Alps for nightmare demons" anyway).
Although in that play "the Alpenkönig" is actually the positive character whose name in the play is "Astragalus" (which is by the way a self-expaining name because it is the name of a "healing plant", and the Alpenkönig is about "to heal" the misanthrope from his misanthropy) and Astragalus is helping the misanthrope´s daughter to marry her love and the misanthrope is so to say the negative counterpart with the name "von Rappelkopf" (that name is also already self-explaining because "Rappelkopf" is the "fun-term" for a "stubbern, egocentric + choleric character) who is against that marriage but then got tricked by the Alpenkönig by putting the misanthrope into a personal nightmare (= putting people into nightmares is what the Alpenkönig always did and does, because he is the King of all nightmare demons= "the King of the Alps") building a setup which brought the misanthrope to the edge of despair and he almost committed suicide (but that´s not played out in a dramatic way because it is a comedy so that all is played out in a comedic way) which flipped the mindset of the misanthrope to become a philanthrope at the end and therefore his daughter is then allowed to marry her love = played out in a typical cutesy "All´s well that ends well" manner..
I just now read your comment. What I was wondering about, is whether "Alptraum" or "Albtraum" was first and then was quenched through the orthography reform. As far as I know it is vice versa to what you stated. "Albtraum" became accepted to be written as "Alptraum" as well because the phonetics are (almost) the same. While I was struggling in my childhood to don't get the wrong writing, it has been simplified and nowadays both versions are accepted. Hence "Alb" is an older version of elves it clearly does not remove - quote: the original root for the meaning [...] which was refering to nightmare demons. End of quote.
@@heinosackmann5599 Sorry but no..Albtraum is not older.
1. I have a library with over 1000 books with many books published before the 1990ties = 20th century + 19th century + some print copies from even earlier centuries in "Kurrentschrift/German cursive which was the writing style of the 17th -19th century" and till the 1990ties it was never ever written "Albtraum" in any publication not even once but only solely "Alptraum".
2. I´m almost 60 years old, and simply know that "Alptraum" was the correct way to write it at my time in school, and to write "Albtraum" was wrong and therefore got always corrected by the teacher.
And I can also remember - vividly - how the orthography of Alptraum then changed into Albtraum in the early 90ties. "Vividly" because that pissed me off heavily at that time.
And according to "elves" those were no thing at all in German literature/mythology, Elves" in the sense of "Alb" = "nightmare creature" those are figures of Nordic literature/mythology and English literature/celtic mythology who got just translated into German as "Alb" in order to avoid to mix it up with the German term "Elfe" which are "pixies" and "fairies"..and that happened way after the printing press was invented and the cultural exchange with foreign "printed book" started to become a thing.
But it might be that in the German Northsea regions "Alb" might was a thing even way before the printing press due to the contact with Danes who are part of Nordic Culture but that is now me speculating. But if that is the case then "Alb" is a "Low German term/Niederdeutsch" but "Alp" is not at all..
"Alp" in written form is around since the early medi eval times and was for describing "nightmare demons" as a "general term= umbrella term" because that´s what "Alp" actually is and always was = "an Old High German umbrella term for obscure creatures which are frightening"..And "Old High German" was the language in the South /Alpine regions = totally different German Culture back then in comparision with the German North of that time...and Modern German is heavily influenced by "Old High German" and that´s why it is also colloquially called "Hochdeutsch" although the correct right linguistic term for "Modern German" is actually "Standard Deutsch" and if the strong influence of Old High German wouldn´t be the case and wouldn´t happened but Low German would had became the predominant German language then we German speakers would speak "Dutch" instead.
17:36 You say "science looks a lot like magic until you know the functions behind it" and then quote Terry Pratchett.
It reminded me of another related quote by A. C. Clarke: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" 😊
Highly recommend carving turnips! It's a little easier, and they turn out really creepy
very true! we tried that way back when pumpkins were not that common hereabouts. Sure enough, they ended up with contortions.
And there young green tops are lovely to eat when braised. Blessed be the Neep Carvers!
Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett mentioned in one episode?! My favourite episode!
Methinks you'd really enjoy the Pratchett/Baxter "Long Earth" series :)
@CheeseWyrm that's actually one I need to get into. Done all Discworld, and a few of Pratchett's other books(Nation & Dodger) but I still need to get those books
@@MattRead13 Cool! There are some DouglasAdams-ish touches in those :)
18:27 hocus pocus, hokey pokey? Any connection? I've read ice cream salesmen would yell hokey pokey while pushing their cart before the song was a thing. Early 19th century.
That's what it's all about, isn't it?
It's all part of the magic of ice cream peddling :)
Hence the Richard & Linda Thompson song about ice cream
What another sweet video, you two. Thank you both. Cheers from the Pacific West Coast of Canada.
My Scottish friends, most aged 70+, tell me that Hallowe'en has always been big in Scotland, and that theymade _turnip lanterns_ , using neeps - what we in England would call swedes.
As a lad in Yorkshire in the '50s we did some halowe'en things, but the focus was on roast-a-catholic night on 5th Nov, with mischief night being 4th. In many ways the North of England is culturally closer to Scotland than the sarfeast. Perhaps that's 'cos the sarfeast has no culture.
I'm born and bred southeast: as a kid I carved swede (hard work) into a lantern. Large pumpkins are easier, not around when I was a child.
In the part about the word monster it was mentioned it meant to show. I now know where the word demonstrate comes from. I am a word nerd (dord?😊) so I love this TH-cam and Rob Words. I am also looking forward to reading Jess's books too.
I know it is a German thing, but we have the Valpurgisnacht we’re witches dance and then there is the Heitschibumbeitschi who steals little babies or their mothers respectively.
You know, Jess, there is a pretty solid "fan theory" (I guess) that postulates Quincey Morris was a thrall of Dracula the whole time. You can google the theory but I think it goes a good way towards explaining his weirdness. Quincey is, aside from Dracula himself, the only other main character to not leave a written record in the tale.
Ooo I love this idea! - Jess
Ooh, I now need to re-read & assess such speculation. I just figured he was 'non-player character' if you will. Someone who was there to provide some physicality/brawn when needed. If indeed this Quincy-thralldom is possible - then it opens a prospective new plotline for a Dracula sequel (especially as it's now public domain). MUCH EXCITEMENT !