Suggest a topic for next Monday’s video! Also no video this Wednesday as I’m taking a couple mental health days xx

I'm thinking back to some proto proto proto Indo-European speaker who is just chilling with their dog and the dog makes a noise that sounds a little bit like dog, and that person's like yeah you sure are buddy.

I always believed 'dog' came from old Germanic 'dugen', which means 'worthy', 'useful'. So a 'dugen' was a worthy and useful animal. In Scots we call them 'dugs' which ties in well with this old Germanic term.

I always heard ketchup came from south-east Asian kicap/ketjap (which is a sauce, in some places fish sauce, sometimes soy sauce). Initially ketchup had fermented fish sauce in it, which would justify the name

I had no idea "girl" & "boy" had unknown etymologies.

Unless I am mistaken, I am pretty confidant the word "garnish" comes from the French word "garniture" which in turns comes from the French verb "garnir" meaning to furnich, to provide. I am confident about this because I am French and I always assumed that's where this word came from. It's also the etymology given on the wiktionary for what it's worth.

"Cheese" is from Latin "caseus", which was borrowed into Proto-West Germanic. It has cognates: Frisian "tsiis", Dutch "kaas", German "Käse", etc. It's the other meanings of "cheese" ("big cheese" and "cheese it") that are of unknown or uncertain origin.

The female name Moira comes from the Irish name Máire which is the Irish language version of the name Mary. Note that in the Irish language, Mary the mother of Jesus has a special version of that name: Muire. People other than the mother of Jesus are not called Muire, however. Instead if they can be named Máire which is the non-Blessed Virgin version of the name in Irish.

I'm pretty sure cheese is cognate with German "Käse" (same meaning)

You started with the words girl and boy. With the german tranlations (Mädchen and Junge) there are some pretty good ideas. The word "Mädchen" (girl) is a diminuitve and derives from Maid or Magd which nowadays is more a female servant. The word "Junge" (boy), I think comes from the word Junker an this was the helper of a knight.

No ketchup most likely comes from the Cantonese word for tomato sauce

6:27 How is the etymology of Moira unknown? It's an anglicisation of Irish Máire and is well documented?

Ketchup is from the Holo languages spoken in the Fujian province, and originally was kê-tsiap (蝦汁) for shrimp sauce.

“jabroni” is a term coined by pro wrestler the Iron Sheik and made popular by the Rock. In pro wrestling a “job” is when you lose a match. It was Iron Sheiks way of calling someone a loser. Not sure if the “roni” part was just made up by him or comes from his native Persian.

Theory: Some people treat their dogs like gods. One day a dyslexic referred to his god as a dog and it stuck.

Girl and boy, I always found it very interresting that in the Scandinavian languages we have so many words for these two concepts. Norwegian dialects alone have a lot, and Swedish and Danish differ as well, while otherwise we usually are quite similar. Gutt, dreng, pojk, glunt, vekj, pia, pike, jente, tøsung, and many more I do not remember just now

isn't cheese from Latin caseus? along with German Käse, Spanish queso, and Portuguese Queijo?

I’ve heard that “cup” comes from Old Norse, where it in turn shares the same root as German “Kopf” (head) and part of the word “edderkopp” whose variations mean spider in Norwegian, Swedish and Danish. Apparently the root meant spherical or circular.

Clock has its origins in the old German for bell. Clapper has a similar origin. “Glocken”. The original clocks operated bells not hands.

You did a good job with this one. A video dedicated to what we don't know could be a long listing of such words, names, etc., though I'm glad you didn't take the "easy way out" like that. I also appreciate the people who has shared their knowledge and backgrounds; this is how we learn!

Ketchup came from Southern Chinese languages Hokkien may be but I pretty sure that it was borrowed into English from one of the South Chinese languages.

Regarding "ketchup", I remember hearing a podcast episode about it's history, but I can't seem to find it now. But according that history, the word comes from a Chinese word meaning "fish sauce", and it lost it's association with fish as it moved around the world and different ingredients were substituted.

OMG! I'm so honoured to have had my suggestion used, I love the vid, I think it came out great!!! and not to mention, incredibly interesting!

"For example, why do they call it 'cheese'?" "When the people smelled the sour mil, that's what they all said! 'Cheez!'" --Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner, THE 2000 YEAR OLD MAN

as an etymology nerd, ive made my own lists on this topic. love this stuff

I figured "cheese" has the same etymology as German "käse" and Spanish "queso."

Cheese comes from the German "kase", which also means cheese. It shares a similar PIE root as the Spanish "queso".... However, before THAT, we don't know the origin

It is my understanding that the word 'bird' is related to the verb 'to breed', probably reflecting some species' reputations for breeding prodigiously. I have also heard that the word 'jam' is, a little improbably, descended from the Greek 'zhomos', meaning 'broth'. Although 'chump' is of unknown origin I'm very glad that that word is linked to the Lancelot Link who was covered by Valérie Čižmárová, as the organisation against which 'Lancelot Link: Secret Chimp' and his APE (Agency to Prevent Evil) was lined up was known as CHUMP (The Criminal Headquarters of the Underground Master Plan).

cheese has an origin, its from latin “caseus” which make it similar to words like spanish “queso” and italian “cacio”. german and dutch also come from “caseus”

It is possible some words didn't have an ancient origin, and at some stage someone just made it up.

I don’t know where “toad” comes from, but if you park in a witch’s parking spot, your car will be toad!

almond feels far too much like a dyslexic version of mandeln ketchup originally is a fish sauce from Asia that had slowly evolved into tomato sauce and originally sounding like katchi cheese (sometimes ch is read like k and probably that being its original pronunciation in that word) Käse queso cacio cup is from proto Indo-European because version of it is found in many languages

Amazing original stuff. Keep us informed. 👍🔥❤️

Hi! I may be wrong about it, but in the bulgarian language the name Мойра (Moira) comes from the greek μοῖραι - the collective noun for the three destiny sisters Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos. So regionally here, in the Balkans, it can be explained with this ethymology. Personally, I've mostly heard people name their dogs this way, but it can be used also as a female name, and has nothing to do with the Irish Mary.

Oscar is probably Old English for God's Spear. Spear in Old English is "gar" but it is not uncommon for that initial g sound to transform into a c sound.

Toad just sounds like the sounds toads make. With some confirmation bias, that's also true for rabbit and dog.

I would guess Flag is an onomatopoeic word. The sound they make fluttering in the breeze, I mean. Same for Dog. A larger dog's barks might sound like the word "dog". And again for frog - think a deep croak of a bullfrog.

Love your Tolkien tattoo on your forearm! I don't know if this is a topic really suitable for this channel, but I was wondering about the link of language migration and ethnicity in history. For example, expressing it a bit oversimplified, did the the Turks manage to force their language on the Anatolian people or did enough Turkic individuals went there to spread their language passively by living there and marrying locals?

Would Garnish be related to Garland some how? Both being adornments sharing the sound "Gar"?

"No lollygagging." Skyrim guard.

Nearly all etymologies are unknown if you go back far enough.

As someone who knows basically nothing about linguistics or the origins of words, I would have to guess that “Dog” comes from the imitation of the sounds dogs make, if you listen to a dog bark, you can kinda hear it

Cheese, dog and a clock. Yes there was a story where Wallace build a Time Machine to find his missing slipper.

We do know where "cheese" comes from. It's cognate with kase and queso, which derive from caseus formosa, which is also where formagio and fromage come from.

As many comments pointed out, I think this list is not entirely unworthy of discussion, like the possible Germanic origin of cheese and flag, East Asian origin of ketchup. And when I saw the clock on the cover image, latin word for bell comes to mind.

Hello There! Video Ideas: -What are your favorite words? -Fun with last names -Vexillology/Heraldry Terms Explained -Nautical Terms Explained -Architecture Terms Explained -Biology/Taxonomy Terms Explained

Garnish comes from the Old French term "garnir", just like most cooking terms in English come from French.

The Spanish word for dog "perro" is also of unknown origin.

I’ve understood ‘clock’ to have originally meant ‘blister’, (Proto-Germanic) and referring to the ‘blister’ shape of bells (hence the German meaning) - and possibly also, later, the blister shape of the glass on a clock or watch face. ‘Clock’ also refers to the raised lump occurring after a bump to the head… although that meaning might come from the Irish word for ‘skull’: ‘cloigeann’. The two words might be distant cognates, referring to a round shape.

I wonder how many of these words were just made up on the spot like someone needed to reference one of them and they were just like "That there? oh, uhm... that's a... a toad! Yep, that's a toad and it's always been called a toad!"

Maybe 'garnish' comes from a way back root word like to cover or adorn... as in 'garment' is a piece of fabric, leather, wool and ect that covers or adorns a body. Garn is like old norse or something for thread or strands of wool. Garnish covers or adorns foods. Or the garnish they used looked like strands of thread or wool. Just a thought.

I always figured that "Cheese" (ćíz) comes from the german "Käse" (kézə), which became kyézə, then ćézə, then ćéz, then entered english as ćēz before finally becoming the ćíz we all know and love.

Almond, cheese maybe have latin origins, "amygdalus" and" Caseus";original ketchup/catsup Is a very old south chinese fish sauce made with guts and herbs, like roman "garum", garnish should be latin because in italian we use the verb "guarnire" and It as the same meaning

Hey man, havent checked in in some years now, but youre lookin great these days, good stuff

The spanish word for dog ("perro") is also quite a big mistery, all the other related languages have "can" or "cane" (related to the word canine) or something similar for dog, but spanish went nuts (we still have "can" for dog but it's just in literature and stuff). Also, the usual name for Cerberus is "Cancerbero" which is just "can" + "Cerbero", huh.

in swedish you have tomt and tomte where tomt is (a) lot and tomte is a creature bound to the lot ( if a hustomte) or santa (if jultomte), both words are from old norse and the definte form is tomten for both of them.

Aren't the names of animals the sounds they make? Like toads croak, but when you say the word toad in your deep voice, it definitely sounds like a toad. Just a thought O_O

Come to think of it, 'flag' and 'clock' seem like possibly onomatopoeia. Similar to 'flap' or 'click'. That's odd, because English seems to have a relatively low supply of words derived this way.

I guess it makes sense that many common words have an unknown origin, because they are probabbly very very old, like from before writing existed.

Word cheese comes from proto germanic, in english k changed to ch. Compare with german: Kirche - Church Käse - Cheese

I always guessed that "nincompoop" was from Latin "non compos [mentis]" (Latin, literally "not in command [of the mind]"), but I don't remember ever having any evidence of that. Seems like a reasonable hypothesis though, doesn't it?

Could "clock" perhaps be onomatopoeic? Or does it pre-date mechanical clocks?

In Norwegian, the words clock and flag are klokke and flagg respectively.

I was surprised to hear that Oscar didn't have meaning since Óskar is a common name in Icelandic. My thought was that Ósk means wish in Icelandic and -ar is a common ending for male names meaning soldier. So I looked it up in an Icelandic list of name meanings just to be sure and I was wrong! That list said it was from Irish and means opponent. I also looked up Selma in the list and there it said it was of celtic origin meaning "the beautiful one"

Origin: someone made it up in order to communicate with someone else, and it stuck.

"Rabbit" might be unknown, but "bunny" probably comes from "coney" (rhymes with "honey" and probably related to Spanish "conejo", was retired due to its similarity to a certain extremely vulgar (and extremely offensive to Neo-Pre-Calvinists) word for non-oral lips)

I would guess that most of the things we do not know the origin of are the most common items in our world. Nobody thought to write them down (figuratively) when we got around to having time to wonder WHY we say the things we do. Early humanity was busy hinting and gathering so no etymologists were saying, "Hey, jot down the origin of that word before we forget it." Good post as always.

Bunny the talking dog knows she's a dog.

Ketchup comes from the Chinese "catsup," but yes like you said, "we don't know its original origin."

I thought ketchup was derived from a fish sauce name in SE Asia

Isn’t “ketchup” speculated to come from ancient Chinese/Malay? Also, “ketchup” was said to be coined by Heinz to make the old name of “catsup” more marketable.

Interesting video Patrick.

Actually, It would be really cool to know the origins of the names of flags. I don't know of many that have a name

Apparently, the origin of the name of the US state of Idaho is unknown.

I think dog rabbit bird and toad are all pretty fundamental energetic onomatopoeias

Guess we really don't know, "who let the dogs out"

I'd heard that 'nincompoop' comes from 'non compos mentis' meaning 'not of sound mind.'

The green and purple ketchup was a hinez thing not specifically a burger King thing

I like coming up with ridicolous etymologies and most far fetched theories for unknown-origin words. For fun. An example of a ricicolous theory would be, the german "Regal" (origin of polish "regał") being some kind of borrowing or derivation of the proto-semitic root "rigl-" through a central-west semitic language or derivation. (like arabic رِجْل ) Which is completely impractical for the late Hanseatic period the word emerged at.

This might be a stretch but the word boy sounds to me very similar to one swedish word for a boy, pojke [påj´ke]. However, this word is apparently a loan word from a finnish word poika meaning boy. Quick google tells me it originates from a protofinnish language. Would it be possible that the word boy came to english somehow through this route 🤔

Why hasn't "Glockenspiel" become a slang term for "Gunplay"? I mean, there's the Glock Company, known for producing firearms. And "spiel" which is the german word for "play". So "Glockenspiel" could easily mean "playing with Glocks" ... so why not!?

Isn't 'dog' coincidentally used in a language in New Guinea (or somewhere like that) that has absolutely no connection to English, to also refer to our canine friends? Can't remember where I heard that. QI? Snapple bottle cap? Also, your avatar looks like a being that would enjoy cheese far more than actual you. :)

Oscar means Cervus (deer) Friend in Gaelic.

i meen some words arr just "hehe funny sound" or "this is a Abriviation turned word" or "fuck it, ill make it up im a scollar"

Well, I feel like “cheese” is very similar to the German word “Käse” and the Spanish word “queso”which come from the Latin word “caseus.” I wouldn’t doubt that these words would eventually morph into “cheese” through the long game of telephone that is language.

Something interesting is that the Romanian word for "boy" is băiat, which sounds a bit like "boy"

?? Say more about "ketchup", because I thought I knew the origin (roughly)! A word that's been around the world, standing for all kinds of sauces, originally an Asian fish sauce! Personally, I've spent time in Australia, where they have "ketchup" (or maybe it was "catsup", I don't remember which spelling they used), which was nothing like the ketchup I know from the U.S. It's been a long time and I don't really remember the flavor, but I think it was sort of a soy sauce kind of thing. I know I've read about this etymology. If it's mistaken, I'd like to hear the evidence. (Yep, just looked it up on etymonline, and there it is, just as I remembered.)

Ketchup would have its origin in Chinese 茄汁 ke-chiap. That one is pretty obvious

You have to check your etymologies better, we DO know where ketchup, clock, cup, spoon, and flag... Like German Glocken for a bell, Latin cuppa (same word), and flag-ellum for a whip...

Now I thoight Arthur meant bear and Oscar meant Aesir's Spear. (Aesir being the norse gods like Odin and Thor.

I always assumed Mushroom room was from the fact they spread out to Make a mushy looking floor

"Clock are the only one similar to the Norwegian word.

I always thought "ketchup" comes from the Chinese "kê-chiap".

Dog is onomatopoeia of a bark. That's where it comes from.

ketchup is a Dutch version of the Malaysian/Indonesian (Dutch colonies) work catsup (spelling different in those languages); it means vegetable sauce; catsup can be made of mushrooms, squash, or tomatoes...) What kind of research are you doing for these videos? We think of ketchup as red, i.e., tomato today)

Do a name explain on musical genres

Working canines and very quickly pets and puppies have been around forever. "Dog" is likely in the same category as "Mom" and "Papa"/"Dad". Some sound a child made while babbling about the important "people" around themselves. "Mumumumumamama... mom. Papipopapapap... papa. Dawdodidadidadodo... dog."/"Yes, child, that is what those things are called. You are cute and smart!"

Carl Ruck says “mushroom” is a Greek pun having to do with cows.

I love the background

Well fuck I need a full video on this subject