Comments by "Zetectic" (@zetectic7968) on "RobWords" channel.

  1.  @amethyst1826 IIRC it was the US government that decided the confused pronunciation (ar-kan-saw and ark-kansas) & distinguished it from Kansas
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  2. Hi Rob, thanks for these numerous facts 😀 A pity you bypassed the Hundredweight aka 112lbs or 8 stones. I guess you could do a video on the weighty subject. BTW while I was watching another YT video I discovered that you moonlight as a presenter/newsreader on DW 😄That explains Berlin and your fluent German.
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  3. 25th March is Lady Day or The Feast of the Annunciation, one of the quarter days of the year when taxes & rents were due. Sometimes used for taking on new labour/workers for the year. Incidentally in Britain with the change from Julian to Gregorian calendars & the addition of the 10 days that is how 6th April came to be the date for the start of the tax year.
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  4. Geest bananas 😉
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  5.  @jsnsk101  Like the paps of Jura (Scottish island hills), teton is Spanish for breasts or a corruption I can't remember
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  6. Rob, you have a way with words 😁 I was lead to believe that Gray was a surname while Grey was the colour. I was hoping that Puce would make an appearance (French origin?) or the word that became popular in the noughties, Cerulean. If you have an artistic bent there are so many others: Burnt Sienna, and Burnt Umber or Ocre .
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  7. Years ago, back last century, I pick up some basic Japanese from watching the TV mini-series Shogun 😀 Written by James Clavell from his book of the same name. I believe he learnt Japanese while a POW. Thanks Rob. I hope you enjoyed your honeymoon in the Orient.
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  8. A hachet is a small axe
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  9.  @Mrjcowman  The Vikings had settlements in Ireland, notably Dublin, so it might have been a direct transfer bypassing England.
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  10.  @tomnicholson2115  Whilst the town is Thame and pronounced tame 😀
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  11. Apparently we have Caxton to thank for changing Plow to Plough. Not mentioned was US english saying clerk & berkshire (burk) while we kept Clark & Barkshire. Although some young people are now saying clerk instead of clark. Don't get me started on Nike (Nigh key) to nike (rhyming with hike)
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  12. I need to return & watch this but I do hope Cordwainer makes an appearance and Chandler.
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  13.  @2eleven48  nom de guerre
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  14.  @briandouglas2123  True but in my defence I only got 4 hours sleep that's I why I confused my homonyms 😕
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  15. From the flower I would guess, like pink(s)
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  16. Oh dear Rob 😭 your newsletter page is blocked by Bitdefender & Nord VPN because it has a bad certificate (expired?).
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  17. With Russin or rather for Russin you can have (afternoon) tea or high tea or maybe even tiffin 😀 In the Hobbit, the Mirkwood chapter where the party is lost & spiders capture some dwarfs in their webs Bilbo calls out Attercop to taunt the arachnids
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  18. From A to Z the street atlas for London is another interesting journey. I'd be curious to know about the long S, more like an f, and where that came from & why it was used. Thanks, Rob, for trip from Alpha to Omega so to speak.
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  19. I believe costermongers we common up to the 1950's selling apples from a barrow hence barrow-boys. As you were wandering the streets you could buy an apple to slake you thirst as there weren't many places except public houses selling drinks back in the day. (Ladies couldn't enter a pub without a male companion)
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  20. Caxton decide to spell plow as plough due to the local dialect. The world of Linotype gave us Hot off the press. Just discovered this and now the American usage makes sense: : An accidental imperfection mark.
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  21. You were in your element doing this video 😀 As a bit of a clever clogs I knew just over half of these, still very interesting none-the-less.
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  22. Caxton gave us plough rather than use plow, which the US uses.
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  23. Plow was common in English. You can see it in churches in the saying often in stained glass "God speed the plow" It was Caxton who spelt it plough as he was foreign and based in Kent
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  24. I feel this video is principally aim at our American friends, who have been misusing unique for years. Sadly the young in Britain are all too open to adopting the US usage. Even the BBC thinks that the rest of the world can no longer understand British English & have wholeheartedly embraced "gifted" & relegated given, gave, donated & bequeathed to obsolescence. I think my head will explode if they start using "dove" instead of dived. Super has replaced very. Back in the last century my English teacher told the class to stop using, nice, as it was a word that had lost its meaning. While I'm often a pedant I'm sure that my errors are more than I would like.
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  25. Rather than a new alphabet just improve/simplify the spelling. So just F instead of ph, K instead of the c. Much as I deplored the American when younger, kwik, nite, check or maybe chek, tik not tick, kew not cue or queue, key not quay.
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  26. This is why time travel is a nightmare! You turn up to watch the signing of Magna Carta, all the toffs are speaking French and the locals sound like a cross between West country & Germans and nobody can understand a word you say 😁 As an erstwhile geologist some rocks are called by their German name, so Gneiss, Feldspar, Greywacke but not Granite or as one chap pronounced it "Grey Night".
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  27. Zoot alors!
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  28.  @BrennanYoung  I give you Malachite green 😀 (Maybe blue as well?)
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  29. I believe Welsh uses Castel for castle
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  30. Fascinating 😀 Then there are the naval ranks! That's where we get waster from and "snotties" and the hangover from the days of sail, and able seaman
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  31. Some I remembered & some I'd forgot, so thanks for the refresher.
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  32. When I was young it was more common to hear the old way of counting, probably influence by French. So if the time was 1:35 it was common to say it was 5 and 20 to 2 or 5 and 20 past the hour
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  33.  @Leo-u4o  and Wheal
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  34. This was interesting but only of use for linguists & philologists. It is pointless as it would cut off English from the whole family of European languages. You might as well propose that we go back to runes or hieroglyphs. English doesn't need a new alphabet! What it needs is a radical overhaul of spelling: remove the silent letters like B in doubt & plumber, use F instead of PH and make C conform to one sound or the other or remove it and use K and S (skool and senter).
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  35. Near me is the River Nadder 😀 Were there lots of snakes nearby or was the course of the river sinuous like a snake? I wonder 🤔
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  36. Whereas a certain German car company gave us: Das auto and Vorsprung durch teknik the French gave us.... Nicole!, Papa! Du pain, du vin, du Boursin Although not French my favourite was, Claret: people who know call it Bordeaux Aux votre sante
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  37. They did it with PH for F as well and C is a nightmare, neither 1 nor the other
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  38.  @realitycheck4086  bound to be an Americanism
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  39. Fantastisch und sehr hilfreich if I can remember these hints. I can generally make more sense of a German menu than a French one. Anyone for Ochsenschwanzsuppe?
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  40. 😦 no mention of why Anglesey is also Ynes Mon or Mona. Omitted the Farne Islands
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  41.  @williamlucas4656  Revert back is a tautology as is continue on
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  42. Oh dear! While interesting, this old dog would struggle to learn the new letters, apart from thorn & the double S. As for spelling lets ditch PH & go with F i.e.telefone & fantom not forgetting elefant. Although I hate to say it drop the U from colour, armour etc.
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  43. We still use naysay & gainsay. Interestingly there is a Frithville near Boston in Lincolnshire, so I guess half the name is right. Imagine Neville Chamberlain talking about frith in our time.
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  44. Cobble is a size of stone sourced from rivers hence cobbled streets. Then we have Wainwright I knew Baxter as that was an uncle's middle name after a grandmother's surname.. Lots more names to go! 3 or 4 episodes at least.
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  45.  @annw1395  You're welcome
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  46. Mind blown. I wasn't taught formal grammar at school a part from noun, verb and adverb, adjective. All the rest was learnt without naming them. Interestingly while English has dyslexia, the Finnish & Italians do not.
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