Why do we say "hello"?
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- čas přidán 5. 06. 2024
- Word nerds RobWords and Jess Zafarris welcome you to the first ever edition of Words Unravelled with an episode all about greetings:
👋Where does the word "hello" come from?
🇮🇹What's the surprising original meaning of "Ciao!"?
🇹🇭Why did Thailand officially change its national greeting?
🇫🇷What are the yucky origins of Ça va in French?
These questions answered, and many more, in the first episode of Words Unravelled.
👂LISTEN: podfollow.com/words-unravelle...
or search for "Words Unravelled" wherever you get your podcasts.
==LINKS==
Rob's CZcams channel: / robwords
Jess' Useless Etymology blog: uselessetymology.com/
Rob on X: x.com/robwordsyt
Jess on TikTok: tiktok.com/@jesszafarris
#etymology #wordfacts #English
When I lived in Brittany I was confounded by older people saying "Allez" when one would expect "au revoir", for goodbye. After several years it came to me that they were not being rude; they were not saying "Go!", they were saying a shortened version of "Allez à Dieu" which means what "good bye" really means: "Go with God".
The reference of “ciao” deriving from “sciavo” meaning “ slave” is like in some parts of Germany you may hear, “ Hallo, Servus” with that same mentality of I am your humble servant.
Inndeed, it's mostly a Southern German as well as an Austrian thing, Servus is a very common greeting and can be both used for hello and good bye and is literally a Latin word meaning the same thing.
Likewise in Swedish. A common colloquial greeting is "tjena", which is short for "tjänare", or servant (cognate with German Diener).
Coming originally from the austrian army as a greeting
I've once heard that comes from "Servus Christi" = "servant of Christ"
"Servus" doesn't mean anything like "humble servant". It's not servile. It's "friends, buddies, companions, comrades". That is, peers.
It’s so refreshing to see you both. No shouting, respect, smiles, well researched stories and not uninformed opinions, loved it!
Glad you liked it! Thanks for watching.
😂😂😂
Now I’m trying to imagine what it would look like to see Rob loudly shouting down his interlocutor. 😂
Cool but when ever did you see intellectuals shouting in a conversation
@@theduece82 sadly, too many times.
At 30:11, I always heard, "Hey is for horses, straw is cheaper, grass is for free" whenever someone said, "hey." So it got shortened to, "Hay is for horses" as we got older. The proper response was an eye roll.
As I child, I noted that in "The Chronicles of Narnia," "hullo" is almost always used as an interjection indicating surprise, not as a greeting. "Hullo, what's this?"
I Flemish Dutch were we say Hallo as a greeting (like German) it can also be used in a totally unrelated context. If you finish a sentence with "hallo zeg" which translates to "say hello" it is expressing a feeling of indignation. For example: Die man zat mij te beledigen, hallo zeg. --> That man was insulting me, say hello. In the same way you can also say "Hallo zeg, wat is dit?" -> Say Hello, what is this?" To express indignation as well.
Sherlock Holmes
Although it's spelled halloa in Holmes
And then there's the character in t h White's "The once and Future King" who constantly uses "hello" at the end of sentences
@@flybeep1661 German and English can do that with just the word hallo/hello, or in German you can also use "aber hallo", all with the same sense as what you expressed in Flemish Dutch. The single-word version often dramatically lengthens the second(German)/first(English) syllable of hallo/hello, almost giving it an entirely new syllable.
Spanish speakers here in Arizona say "bueno" when answering the phone.
I thought Wotcha was short for what are you doing/what are you up to? But the idea that it is short for what cheer is lovely.
Greetings!
I'm Czech and we use „Ahoj“ (Ahoy)
ALL the time. It's a paradox considering that we're landlocked.
Also we use „Čau, Čaues , Čauky, Čus“ etc (Ciao)
Both at the beginning and the end of a conversation.
We also use „Haló“ for a distant call or a reassurance of someone's presence on a phone...
Also the „salam“ greeting is quite funny to me as it means bacon in Czech.
Glorious! Thanks for this.
R
Interesting. Though isn't Čus from German tschüss? I could be wrong!
"Ahoj" really sounds quite funny when you're hiking on the German side of the border around Elbe and then decide to try the Czech side :) (On the German side it's mostly "Hallo" and "Servus")
"Salam" for "bacon". Is that somehow related to the word salami?
Ahoj (English Ahoy) is also said in parts of Slovenia, but not very much, more often “zdravo” or “živio” depending on context. Goodbye is almost always “se vidimo” or “se slišimo”, maybe “adijo” or “nasvidenje”. Very contextual.
What a nerd fest. I love it!
Laughed out loud .. so expressed what I was feeling
That origin of "goodbye" from the contracted phrase "God be with you" ("godbwye") blew my mind. For some reason I had never looked it up.
It's so natural to assume "bye" was already a word by that point. Quite surprising finding out "bye" came from "be with you"!
Back in the 60s my grandmother told me it was short for "god be with you" so it's something I've known all my life. Something she'd tell me off for is using "oi" to attract someone's attention. Apparently that is supposed to be quite rude but I don't know why. It sounds no more offensive than "hay"
Question.
Rob you told in one of your videos, that "ye" is a "wrong-writing" or more a result of a bad handwriting of the "th". So might it be, that "goodbye" --> "god b(e) w(ith) ye (=you)", as you mentioned at aproximatly at 27:55 ... is maybe "god be with ..." ... I think of "go with god" ...
Learning English many many years ago, I thought "goodbye" was once written "godby" --> "god next to you" ... still like the idea
And now to something completly different.
The German "Grüß Gott", had always something final for me. My instinct reaction is "no, I don't want to... not now..."
Thx
Does that make goodbye an egghorn?
We Hungarians know that the word hello (Hungarian: halló) comes from Hungarian "hallod?" , meaning "do you hear?". (Hungarian "hall" means to hear) Because at the building of first telephone centers were many Hungarians involved. like Tivadar Puskás. So they were asking over the line "hallod?", do you hear? can you hear?
Yes. I expected in vain that Rob would also find the Hungarian origin of "Hello" during his research... 😔
Wow! Never knew that .
I was surprised Hey / Hej didn’t make it into the conversation, given the Scandinavian influence on the English language.
My natural in person greeting is "ey" as in "hey" without the h.
though it's the entire point of the last 90 seconds of the video.
Came for Rob, stayed for Jess.
I am a math teacher and I would like an episode on the word "binomial."
Now it makes sense why Hobbits say "Hullo" in LOTR! Can't wait for more episodes!
My favourite greeting comes from Ojibwe: aanii (pronouned Ah Nee or Ah NEE) and means "I see your light"
Wonderful video! Thanks so much for making this!
For a pair of word nerds, you both have wonderfully expressive faces. Ironically, this is a good lesson in non-verbal communication.
Goodbye in Japanese - Sayonara (Formal); Bai Bai ( bye-bye), Jaa Ne (see you later), or Mata Ne ( see you later) (Friends or Family); Ittekimasu (I'm leaving now) (used when leaving home or office); Ojama Shimashita (I have disturbed you) (used when leaving someone's home).
Be careful, though. "Ittekimasu" literally means "I'm going and then coming back", so at the office you could use it if you were going out to lunch or for some errand, etc., and planning to return. But if you're leaving because you've finished work you would probably just say good-night, "O-yasumi nasai". And if you're leaving but other people are still working, especially people you work closely with, people might also say "O-saki ni shitsurei shimasu", or "O-saki ni" for short, which means "I'm sorry/excuse me for leaving before you"...
Sayonara is used in situations rather rare for non native Japanese speakers. For example at a preschool . e.g. "sensei sayonara". Ojama shimashita? That one feels unfamiliar, never heard that in the past form, but it well likely exists. Hard to say what I would use. Probably depending on whose home I am about to leave. If the person is close I would have likely had some food and say (gochisousama deshita, "it was a feast") and maybe "iroirona arigatou ne" (thanks for all different kinda things). In a more formal situation I'd use "shitsurei itashimasu" (I'm being rude). And if I really felt like almost overstaying my welcome, maybe living at someones place for a few days or even weeks, I'd say "taihen osewa ni narimashita." (You cared for me very much).
Fascinating, in South African Afrikaans we say "Ja nee"(yes no) when there's no immediately appropriate response.
For instance:
Statement: "My lewe is deurmekaar (My life is in a shambles)"
Response: "Ja nee" - avoids a potentially inappropriate or insensitive response.
@@niclaatz Well in Japanese Jaa and Ne, have only indirect reference to yes/no. "Jaa" is used to change a topic or just to make your wish to speak being recognized (instead you can also use the "dewa"-sound (romaji - transcription "deha"). and "ne" is an attempt to get an agreement on what was said (like in: "isn't it"?, so here is some slight no/not feeling, this usage of "ne" also exists in some german regions in that context, so possibly in dutch/afrricaans too). So the phrase is probably translatable to ("Uhm, well...-it's time to say bye for now-...you know, right?")
I thought sayonara, was " goodbye, we may never meet again for a long time"
When my contemporaries were sent to prep schools somewhere on the South Coast, I was shipped off to an international boarding school in Switzerland. While this was not all it was cracked up to be, there was no corporal punishment which suited me. The standard way of ending a conversation in the town was to use the German ‘Alf wiedersehen’ (literally ‘To the next time we see each other’). Occasionally you would hear the French ‘Adieu’ which always left the impression that they hoped never to see that person ever again.
Later on back in England, I read, some would say too many, books written by PG Wodehouse. I quickly adopted ‘what Ho’ and ‘pip-pip’ for ‘hello’ and ‘good bye’. Today these are still my standard greetings. I could easily greet the King with a ‘what Ho’ if I were presented. Only in later life did I realise this is the challenge the sentry shouted in Macbeth.
Tootle pip! ❤
When I lived in Madrid Spaniards answered the phone with "diga me" '- "speak to me".
That's emminently sensible!
When Rob clarifies that 'my dear' (from 'me duck') does not imply any particular intimacy, it reminded me of the Cornish 'my lover' / 'me lover' which again is affectionate but not romantic in anyway. To outsiders like myself being addressed as 'lover' is memorable and, well, lovely.
I am Canadian 🇨🇦(first generation ). Am I right that “duck” or “ducky” is an endearment for children?? Or maybe it’s because my dad was British, from the area that Rob hails from…
@@erineross1671 I live in the same area as Rob was originally from and "duck" is used for children and adults alike.
Chao is quite common in Germany by Germans.
@@erineross1671 I use bird nicknames as endearment (flight, serenity, caring ideas). Someone is nicknamed Duck because they resemble one.
"Love" is used in West Yorkshire in place of "mate" or "pal" used elsewhere, between people of both opposite and the same gender. It seems odd to me, as a man from outside of West Yorkshire, to hear a male railway worker answer "platform 4, love" in response to my query as to where my train is departing from
Best way to answer the phone in years gone by:
'It's your dime!'
Nowadays in Italy, it is ciao for hello, and ciao ciao for goodbye.
Pronto in Italy - comes from the times of the original operator-connected and arranged phone calls, meaning "I AM READY" to receive the call. (nothing to do with quickly which is subito)
Australians almost universally greet each other with “g’day”
In the US, when we are hiking a popular trail, we often greet the strangers we pass with a simple nod, or a quick hi or hello. In Australia, G'day was very common, as was a friendly how ya goin'
Never use it 😂
Or...
How's it hanging?
Lol
G'day, how, ya go'en? We know how to abbreviate. And ooroo, for goodbye.
I've always known the greeting to be 'gidday' being a shortened version of 'good day', at least that's what my school English teacher told me 60 years ago.
"Pronto" in American English is borrowed from Spanish. "Pronto" means 'soon' or 'quickly' in Spanish.
How interesting that Ciao means "slave".
In southern Germany, we often greet each other with "Servus" (both arriving and leaving) - which, I'm sure you can tell, is Latin for "servant". The legend is that when the Romans were here in southern Germany, the locals heard them call out "servus", without realizing that the Romans were calling a servant. The locals adopted "Servus" as a greeting, and it's still in use today. :)
"Me duck" is still a common form of endearment in Leicester. In nearby Northamptonshire, it is often rendered as "M'old duck" (my old duck). It's also occasionally used in northern Bedfordshire but then peters out.
If ciao means slave, it has the same meaning as the bavarian / austrian servus you can use instead of both hello and ciao. Servus is also understood in all other countries that once belonged to the austro-hungarian empire.
Another greeting which is used in a frequently rather extended time frame around noon, I'd reckon practically in the whole of Germany, is Mahlzeit, which literally means meal time. Since it is used around lunchtime both when you meet someone and when you part, it may come from wishing "a good meal" either to come or to have had. In the company I worked in it was sometimes used the whole day over, even during night shift, and under all circumstances, even in workshops, where nobody was having a meal nor expecting to have one soon.
I am your obedient servant, Rob and Jess. Thanks for the presentation.
My favourite hello-type greeting is in Arabic Syrian (Levantine) dialect - SHLONAK? - which is a contraction of “shou lawnak”: what is your colour? I.e., what's your mood? My next favourite is the way hello is said in Lebanon, where most people speak a mix of Arabic, English and French (very colonial): Hi,
Kifak, ca va!
I love the Terry Pratchett/Neil Gaimen book Good Omens:
Crowley: Ciao!
Ligur: What's that mean?
Hastur: "Ciao", it's Italian, it means "food".
I love etymology, and the two of you make it even more enjoyable. Looking forward to more episodes!
More to come! Thanks for watching
R
Pronto meaning doing something quickly in English more likely comes from the Spanish "pronto" meaning "soon". Great discussion. Love it.
I have heard the German Version "Hallo" comes from the call "hol över" (Haul (me) over) you would call to a ferryman waiting on the other side of a river to make him aware that you need his service. For shouting over distances it was helpful to have distinct short understandable words - so "Hallo" was formed, maybe the "-ver" bit was blown away by the wind anyway.... "Hey!" would be even shorter but not speciffic, the other one would have to ask: "What?"
Same on the first telephone, because low sound quality you needed dinstinct, clear words to be understood.
In the UK Black Country (and also in parts of Gloucestershire) 'How bist' or 'Ow Bist thee' is still used . Very good link back to OE and Frisian/Low German.
The answer is traditionally ''Bay too bah" -
Wow! I had no idea "bist" was still in our language. Marvellous.
R
I am most curious. Is the "Shire" , in "Gloustershire" - in the Black Country - pronounced "sure" or "shyre"?
@@RingsLoreMaster that depends on where you come from. Where I live in the middle of the southern UK, the Shire part is pronounced Shuh with no R at all. Further west they'd use probably Sure as you suggest. Other parts of the UK will vary
Any idea what the "bay too bah" might mean - or the origin of same ?
I find it intriguing that neither of you brought up "aloha" from Hawaii.
"Hallo, how's ya poo?" is now canon. 😁
That greeting is the shit! 💩
Ça va?
In South Africa a very common greeting is "howzit".
I would guess the origins of “howzit” is the Afrikaans “Hoe gaan dit?” (How goes it)
It's not uncommon to say "How's it going?" as well, but "howzit" is what everyone says.
Most common greeting where I'm from in Ireland is probably 'well boy?', or 'well girl?', or just 'well?' on its own.
Just like how 'how're you?' as a greeting is not really a question, 'well?' isn't really a question either, but the response is the same, just well also.
That really confused me when I moved to Portumna in 1989.
I like this podcast idea. Please keep it here on CZcams
A little fun fact to add to »ciao«:
In Bavarian the most common greeting is »Servus«, deriving from the identical Latin word meaning »slave«. Just like with »ciao« the speaker means to express »I am at your service« but it's become a relatively casual greeting or goodbye.
I heard "Servus!" in Nuremberg a few months back. Charmed the heck out of me.
R
Strange that in the UK we were taught NOT to say 'hello' when answering the phone, but rather to quote the exchange name followed by the subscriber's number. I imagine this was originally because we had to confirm to the operator that they had reached the correct subscriber, and later because it was easy to make a mistake when dialling a number with a rotary dial phone.
But at around the time when push button phones became common we began saying 'hello' - probably during the late 80s.
Gosh I'd forgotten that, thank you for the reminder.
Oh yes, I remember my Nanna picking up the phone and saying 'Tregony 606?', way back in the 1970's 😃
Happy days; the most recent advice, albeit some years ago now when people still had landline phones, was 'Never answer the phone with your name or number as it helps fraudsters'! Good to see how all our lives have improved over time🙃
@@conradharcourt8263 Indeed!!
31 minutes of such an interesting knowledge. In my language, swedish, the most common greeting word is "hej". In high school I was told that this word dated back to the viking era and was brought back in the begining of 1800, right after Sweden lost Finland to Russia.
Wotcha (or wotcher?) was pretty common when I was young, and I think it was common in cockney. It also features in that campfire song, “gin gan goolie”.
I'm originally from Bedfordshire and have lived a lot in SE England and Wotcha is still very common in working class circles. Wonderful to see how Shakespeare remains relevant 🙂
There is a great Seinfeld episode where Kramer was promised a hello by the bank or he wins $100. Long story short it is a clever compilation of all the ways you can acceptable greet someone in English.
Speaking of single-word conversations, there's a comic strip called Zits and the main characters are a teenaged boy and his friends. I remember one strip where he and his friends have an entire conversation using only the word "Dude". They use it as a greeting, as a way to offer to share something, to say "Thank you", to express surprise, etc., and finally as a way to say "Good-bye"...
Sweet
@@JohnFlower-NZ czcams.com/video/77v_Q0mhbZU/video.html
I take it that all the terns are male. If not, the women have been left out. Otherwise, why the word"dudette"?
I picked up "Ciao" when I was studying in Nice, France, and traveling in Italy. Forty years later, I still use "Ciao!" in casual situations.
BTW, I'm the only person I know in Vermont who uses "Ciao", but everyone seems to understand what it means... Cultural diffusion through movies, I suspect.
Surprising, since hello/hullo/hollo were originally a way to _hail_ someone (as was noted), that it hasn't been linked to the very word 'hail'. To hail someone originally meant to say/yell the word 'Hail' to them - that being the shortened form of 'wasail', which was a greeting that meant Be Well, or Be Whole. No stretch to imagine a common greeting acquiring a tail: hail-o - similar to tallyho or right-oh. Any frequently used expression gets played around with, and evolves over time.
I am glad this was recommended. Looking forward to more.
Great vid. Regarding God be with you: in Irish the greeting is Dia dhuit which also means God be with you. The reply is often Dia agus Muire dhuit 'God and Mary be with you. A funny story I was once cycling on Inis Mór one of the Irish speaking islands off the coast of Galway and Clare and passed a group of Japanese tourists. I wished them Konnichi Wa as I whizzed by. Without missing a beat they greeted me back with 'Dia dhuit'.
Yep, it's hard to be an atheist in Irish! See also "Bail ó Dhia ar an obar" (a blessing from God on the work) if a person was working.
Note that we were taught two forms of goodbye. The basic word is slán (safe/in good health), but you were supposed to say "slán leat" to a person who was leaving the meeting-place, but "slán agat" to the person staying put: may safety accompany you vs. may safety be with you!
„Hie thee hither“ (Macberh I, 5). I should definitely use this more often!
In Liverpool for hello we say ‘Yer Alright’ or just ‘Alright’
For good bye we say ‘Tara’ if on the phone about four times alternating between each speaker Tara, Tara, Tara ,Tara 🙂
In Filipino, a common greeting we use equivalent to hello- most usually seen in the tourism industry- is "mabuhay", which literally means "to live". So when those people at the airport greet you like that, it's like an invitation to live in our country, amongst our people. Which sounds quite lovely imo.
And one way to say "goodbye" is "paalam"- more literally, it means to ask permission or to let someone know something. In this case, you're letting them know you're going on and asking permission to leave. Which is rather polite lmao.
It's a bit of a shame we don't really use these day to day tbh. Most Filipinos have some command of English so we tend to greet each other in English, like "Hi!" or "Good morning po!" ("po" being a generic term we add for respectful speech).
My new favorite podcast? I think so!
Hooray! Thanks for listening.
R
Talking about ‘morrow’ reminded me of Spanish in which ‘mañana’ meaning both the morning and/or tomorrow, which has been a pain in my time on Duolingo.
Also ‘salut´ in French for saying hello and goodbye, I’m guessing must come from salutations, like you mentioned about salute.
I live in Japan, so here are some common ways to say goodbye:
matta ne (most common, something like "see you later")
matta ashita (usually said like "ma ta shta" - "see you tomorrow")
Both of the above are sometimes preceded by "ja", or "jaa", similar to saying "Well, ..."
bai bai (said just like "bye bye" and mostly used by kids and young people)
Good job with this! Was refreshing to just see two intellectually curious people sharing knowledge and being cheerful and likeable. Pleasant change to a lot of media these days!
Matta ne was the one the barman told me to use! Thanks for the reminder.
R
@@WordsUnravelled yeah, it’s the go to! (And comes from the -ta form of matsu - to wait, so literally means something close to “please wait”!, but used like “see ya”!)
This was lovely! Long time fan of RobWords ❤ Keep it up 😊
Salute makes a a lot of sense as an expression of greeting. In military custom, the origin of the hand salute dates back to medieval times when armored knights would raise their visors upon approaching each other to identify themselves and signal intent. This was a common form of greeting between knights.
A'rite Rob, that's smashin' duck .
In a small town in Ireland (between Galway and Tipperary) the greeting was "Well", no one seemed to know why though.
The Czechs also say: "Ahoj" (ahoy) for hello.
Ahoy is also a naval greeting/challenge. When a boat is approaching a naval ship, the quartermaster shouts to it: "Boat ahoy!" If there is an officer aboard the boat, then the response is: "Aye-aye!"
If the captain of another naval ship is in the boat, the boat coxswain would reply: with the name of the ship from whence the captain is coming.
This is an ancient vocal form of "IFF" (Identification Friend or Foe), as well as a lead time for the ship to prepare to properly receive the officer or Captain in the boat.
So next episode…. “No, yeah”. And “yeah, no” .
To greet, in battle having the same meaning as to attack, reminds me of the way address is used to describe the interaction between a golf club and ball.
I just paused the video because it was stated that “greet” was related to calling out and my brain instantly connected it to “gritar”-the Spanish verb “to shout.” Perhaps there’s something to that.
The German term "Fernsprecher" is common among people that celebrated their 100th birthday recently. Honestly, almost everyone says "Telefon" today. ... Thinking a bit further about that, the younger ones would rather say "Handy" or "Smartphone", they just don't have that stationary device anymore.
The term Fernsprecher is outdated, right, but we still use Fernseher (Farseer) for television very commonly.
🤣
In Mandinka, at least at the time I learned to speak it, greetings were generally long and formal, starting with “Kor’ tanante?” Which meant “Hope you have no problems!” Followed by detailed enquiries about the person’s family and where they are, etc. Some younger people would ask “I be nyaadi?” meaning “How you doing?” And there were different sequences of questions in different parts of the region (Senegal and Gambia, Mali…) But each question had a prescribed answer, and learning the right answers was a trip at first. The right answer to “Where’s your family?” was “They are here”, and the right answer to “Any problems?” Was “No problems”. I caused much hilarity when I answered the “Any problems?” question with “They’re here!” Things may have changed, because Mandinka wasn’t a written language at the time.
My favorite salutation is from South Louisiana- it is pronounced as one word quickly - “How’s-ya-ma-‘n-em?”. Meaning “how is your mother and the rest of the family”. It’s so endearing. You just need to know if “Ma” is dead or alive before using it.
We say cheers as a goodbye in NZ, also as thanks
And we also use 'kia ora' which is the Māori for be (or sort of do) healthy, and can also be used as thanks.
Finnish has a greeting that supposedly has a rather surprising origin - "Moi!" It's a very casual greeting, basically like "Hi!" except even more casual. Apparently it travelled into Finnish from the Dutch! Not a super close neighbour. In Dutch they greet "Moin!" and it just means "beautiful!"
An older greeting in Finnish is "terve!" which quite literally means "healthy". The word meaning "a greeting" even is "tervehdys". But what is _actually_ fascinating is that the word for health seems to be derived from the word for tar - "terva". It was heavily associated with health as were trees in general.
In parts of Germany they say Moin too!
@@charleighblue Yep - I've heard Germans say it...but never Dutch LOL.
I learned 'Moi' in a visit to Finland, and 'Moi-moi!' when answering the phone. When I tried to use it on an old Finish woman here in Canada who had emigrated in 1940, she didn't believe me - as she had never heard Moi used.
Actually, beautiful in Dutch is mooie.
The greeting Moin is popular in all of Northern Germany, but means "morning", a short form of "good morning". But it can be used at any time of the day in Northern Germany. Also to say good-bye.
"Como smelly poo?" 🤣
One of my all time favorite lines from literature (Dumas) is when D’artagnan is dying, he says “Athos - Porthos, au revoir! Aramis, adieu!"
Fascinating. In Tasmania, Australia, in my youth I'd often hear people say ' how are ya duck?" I always wondered why they used 'duck'.
Sadly, it seems to have disappeared as a greeting now.
Ey-up, Me Duck! Loving the new channel (Words Unravelled). Words and their origins are fascinating 🤓
Really enjoyed your relaxed and informative style. Looking forward to more videos!
On ça va, I remember a French obsession with liver function, as in, “don’t eat that, it’s bad for the liver.” Given that, it’s not a great leap … umm … downward to asking about one’s stool.
I love this - two professionals who love their profession going on gleefully.
19:40 Interesting. In Portuguese the word "thank you" changes depending on the gender of the speaker: obrigadO for men and obrigadA for women.
The literal translation in English is obliged, which you hear often enough in Texas as 'much obliged' with an implied subject (I am). So it's an adjective, which in Portuguese must agree with the gender of the subject -- in this case the speaker.
Amazing
This was excellent. Hit subscribe right away. Well done, Rob and Jess!
I have been watching your videos for some time and now I’m enjoying your podcast. Such a pleasure to find a positive corner of the internet!
I love this. It is very interesting. If you ever visited Mexico, you'd quickly learn that most answer the telephone with a rapid "bueno bueno!"
Salutations Rob and Jess. This is wonderful. I so look forward to more of these podcasts.
I'm Irish and good morrow was used by my father's generation quite frequently. It was usually reduced to a simple 'morrow as in 'morrow boys. Before the Ulster Plantation there was an attempt to plant Munster with the English. This failed as a lot of the newly 'planted' English were quickly absorbed into the Irish language and culture. As a result we in Munster have retained a lot of archaic English in our speech such as Forenenst meaning in front of me or opposite me.
Fascinating stuff, thank you!
At school, we had to sing from Nelson's New National Songbook. One of the songs was 'Good morrow gossip Joan, Oh where have you been walking, I have for you at home, a budget full of talking'.
I have never seen the word " Forenenst" written down before. My Dad always used to tease Grandma about her Irish accent. She was from the Ottawa Valley in Canada. Was that word only used in Munster?
@@francespettigrew9646 I believe forenenst is used in Ulster Scots also. Though an archaic word I believe it to be used regularly by those of a certain generation. I still use the word 'ye' when referring to you in the plural. I feel contemporary English has jettisoned too many words which were both colourful and descriptive, alas.
Forenest and Good morrow are also used in Wexford in the southeast. 'What way are ye?' is a common greeting here also
In Doric (spoken in the North East of Scotland) we commonly say 'Fit like?' as a greeting, meaning 'what like', or 'how's things'. A reply could be 'Nae bad. Foo's yersel?' meaning 'not bad. And how are you?'.
An alternative is 'Aye, aye' which translates as 'Yes, yes' but just means hello.
Really enjoyed the first episode of the new channel.
Love "fit like?"
I've also heard 'Foos yer doos?' ("How are your doves?") in Doric.
@@omniglotThat's one that you see on lists of Doric phrases, or reproduced on tea towels and mugs, but it's not one that I ever hear to be honest.
It would be interesting to know if any other Doric speakers use it regularly in normal conversation.
Literally the same as Spanish "¿Que tal?"
I studied Spanish in high school, and our teacher taught us both “¡Hola!” and “¿Que tál?”
My parents also taught me a bit of Slovenian, like “živio” and “se vidimo” among other basic words and phrases.
We say "Hej!" in Sweden. That's our way of saying "Hello!"
I love learning about etymology and the quirks of language, so this podcast is right up my street (and Harry potter is an amazing bonus!)
Liking this format. Most enjoyable and informative, Rob. Well done both. Keep it here on CZcams. Ciao 😁
Will do!
Rob
Brilliant video! Thoroughly enjoyed it - especially "hey up, me duck" 😎
You guys have a lot of fun together; its fun to watch.
I read that "hello" originated from ships when watchmen in the crows nest would shout "hail below" to attract attention of the crew before they said something about what they had spied from the crows nest.
Love this immediately!
Love it, such a fun idea. I've read Lexicographers' books, where they make fun of us civilians who are enamored by etymologies. They smugly call us smug. Silly. Humans are curious, we want to know the past use of words. Words are ideas. Ideas evolve.
So glad you two are starting this series, ty :)
In Mid-Wales, the greeting “How Bist ti” is used, which has striking similarity to German.
Hello! I am so excited ‘Useless Etymology’ has a podcast! I write poetry and often begin by researching the origin of words, ie. coda, a poet’s ‘summation’ at the end of a poem means tail, what fun!!!
In Swedish, we sometimes say "hej hopp", though usually considered a bit silly and and used tongue-in-cheek.
Or in northern UK also sometimes "Hey-up"
Swedish also have the greeting tjena/tjänare, which also means serv/servant.
The abbreviations could possibly be put down to the fact that paper was fairly expensive and the main body of parchment would be taken up with text both front and back with just a small panel for addressing the recipient. Then very clever folding. So BW would be a sensible abbreviation.
This was amazing, you guys are a pleasure to listen to!
Brilliant! Been following Jess on tiktok for a while and it's great to see worlds collide!
Yay
Edit: when you explained the curious origin of "Ciao" it immediately reminded me of the (southern) german greeting "Servus". Seems like they have the same origin/meaning.
Very nice podcast format, keep it up! :)
Well it goes more directly back to Latin servus but I commented on the similarity,too.
I hadn't thought of that, you're so right!
Swedish "tjänare"
@@mzaliwa😁 "Tja ba!"
Thanks Rob for this. I can listen you for hours and hours. The clarity you possess while speaking, very few people do that.
We still use "ey up" in Yorkshire as a warning as well as a greeting. It's also used, I guess in the warning sense, to ask people to move out of the way, often followed by, "Coming though!".