SUPER Advanced English Concepts (Experts only!)

My office has a coworker who came from a British family that is constantly posing questions about “why don’t we use accent”, “why can’t we write foreign names the way it’s intended to be”, “why don’t Canadians learn to respect other culture”. And I never know what to say because I’m an immigrant and I’m very used to western-centric Canadians. I don’t dwell in things I can’t change in office small talks. Sad to say that I attribute her incessive to white guilt and dismiss her attempts at these conversations. Thanks for giving me some critical perspectives in how English language enfolded over time. This helps me feel less annoyed.

Amok Time doesn't run!
Typing in the word "etymology" before "amok" or "eke" in Google seems to have sources and translation.

You made this point before about the anglicisation or not of foreign names but JJ you HAVE to admit it is easier to recognise/learn Latin alphabet names even if you don't have an intuitive understanding for the pronunciation than it is to recognise character based language names.

Just because the average English speaker could not exactly accurately pronounce either does not mean they are equally incomprehensible.

People who liked this video I recommend the Words Unravelled podcast. It dives into the meaning and origin of words and all the strange quirks of English that speak a lot about our culture.

It's probably more widely known now because of the Tom Scott video on it, but the grammatical rules to english swear word insertion (abso-bloody-lutely" was one of the most fascinating things I ever learned about english

in Polish, we have 2 letters that are used for "oo" sound: u and ó. There are rules to when use one and not another but they sound exactly the same which infuriates most Polish learners… or do they??? I've come across many elderly people and heard accounts of linguists who said they clearly hear a distinct difference in tone when people say that. I find that hard to believe them but if you hear that or are more knowledgable about the topic, i'd be really glad to hear more, please comment below.

Only ever heard sire used to relate breading race horses

A similar concept to the royal we is something that I call the corporate we, used by representatives of a company (cashiers, customer service, spokespeople, etc.) used to refer to the entire company even if it is just the action of the single individual

Peking is the Southern Mandarin (Nanking) pronunciation, and also like in Cantonese ("Pêk-king").
The spelling "Beijing" (or "Běijīng") was conceived in 1958 with the introduction of pinyin.

“Further ado”, I’m sure comes from the French word adieu. No?

quite the vidéo, We are thusly amused at thine recherche, until We meet a-gain

This was a really interesting video!

Calling Køln "Clone".
Mans funny 🤣

The new Yorker style omluid/umlaut is very much how Dutch uses it.
Because Dutch also has a lot of words with double vocals (woord, toon and a host of other cognates for you Americans), and as with English these give you distinct sounds.
However this is not the case in many French/Latin loanwords (same as in English).
So the Dutch fixed it.