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and now today's video we here today i found out firmly in the camp that language is constantly
evolving and grammar likes to serve language and effective communication not the other way around
putting aside the issue of unintentional mistakes intentional use of atypical grammar or words isn't
really something to get inherently upset or high and mighty about and certainly those who claim
some word like irregardless isn't actually a word they're never correct all words are words from the
moment someone first coins them at least according to pretty much every major dictionary out there
more on that in one of our favorite videos from the past how do they decide what words
go in the dictionary and are words ever removed on a similar note if many people want to treat
ufo as an initialism instead of an acronym and thus say ufo when they see the string of letters
in our opinion one is on shaky ground if claiming that we've all been pronouncing it wrong that said
it is very interesting to note how pronunciations sometimes diverge from what the original creators
or people who popularized some term intended case in point edward j ruppeld dying at the tender age
of 37 of a heart attack his is a name most only remembered today by those well-versed in the field
of ufology as to why said individuals are familiar with this man this is largely
because of his genuinely fascinating book the report on unidentified flying objects which
drew from his admirable work on project blue book a comprehensive set of investigations conducted by
the u.s air force into the phenomena of flying saucers while working on the project rappel
famously suggested the phrase unidentified flying object to describe these sightings rather than
flying saucer as was previously popular among the general public he then acronymizes to ufo
and even instructed people on how this should be spoken in this case he suggested ufo yep
ufo is held the person who popularized and is sometimes credited as coining unidentified
flying object instructed people on how to say the acronym's version not ufo moving on from there dr
seuss should actually be pronounced dr zoice but theodore geisel got tired of correcting people
so we now also dr seuss instead of how he dr seuss or zoys actually pronounced it similarly wikipedia
should technically be pronounced wikipedia not wikipedia this is if we're going to follow the
lead of the original creator of the first wiki howard cunningham when he applied the hawaiian
word pronounced wiki meaning quick to his little web software the wiki wiki web or wiki wiki web
moving on once again we have yee as in ye old coffee shop while many people pronounce
this ye in fact it should be pronounced simply the you see the ye here is not the ye as in judge not
that ye you be not judged but is rather a remnant of the letter thorne the letter thorne was used
in old norse old english middle english gothic and icelandic alphabets and is pronounced more or
less like the digraph th around the 14th century the use of thirst started to gain in popularity
at the same time the way the letter was written gradually changed to look a lot like the letter y
instead of the original thing that looks like it's on the screen because of this shift in
written form of the latter combined with the advent of the printing press in the 15th century
many of which had no letter thorn printers chose to use the letter y as a substitute for the letter
this is why you'll occasionally see manuscripts from that time with things like yat or y t for
that and of course the abbreviated to ye or yi without capital y despite the use of the small
y here it was still understood by readers to be pronounced like thorn or the diagraph
tha eventually all but the yi popularly died out in favor of the respective th forms later even ye
went the way of the dodo accepting being used in the names of trendy sounding old stores the
english-speaking world over thanks to the bible most people are more familiar with the second
plural pronoun yee which is pronounced with a y sound as they are spelled the same most
people naturally assume the two words are the same of course you old coffee shop would kind
of be a bit of an awkward name in the end yi as in ye old bookstore is a completely different
word using the letter thorne and instead should just be pronounced exactly like the
this doesn't sound nearly as archaic so not exactly what the store owners are likely going for
but well that can't be helped moving on from words to phrases that most people get wrong anyone who's
ever played telephone at camp knows how easy it is for your mind to twist tweak or completely
change what you've just heard when you repeat it to someone else common throughout history
sometimes when this happens the adapted quote frequently becomes more popular than the original
even when it occasionally changes the original meaning entirely here are just a few examples
money is the root of all evil completely incorrect both in what the original utterance was going for
and in that actually money comes in handy to do a lot of good in the world from big things just
putting food on your family's table every day so clearly not inherently evil the actual quote
is derived from a line found in one of saint paul's letters to timothy this common misquote
significantly emits three important words which changes the meaning of the passage completely
paul's original admonition was for the love of money is the root of all evil timothy chapter 6
verse 10 once again the love of money not as his so often stated money itself as you can see in
the original version it is coveting money or greed not the money itself that is the root of all evil
according to the saintly paul which well makes a lot more sense next up we have have your cake and
eat it too the idiom you can't have your cake and eat it too deliciously illustrates the concept of
making trade-offs and realizing that you can't have something if you have another the phrase
is often used when referring to compromises and alludes to making a choice between two options
that could never be reconciled in other words the two options are mutually exclusive other
cultures have adopted the spirit of this phrase to fit their own languages for example in russian
the translated phrase is you can't sit on two chairs which just saying i'm pretty sure that i
could in german the saying goes you can't dance at two weddings which you totally can just go to
two weddings and dance prompt solved in yiddish the adage goes much like the russian except one
touches is added on the end touches his yiddish for backside or less delicately the butt so you
can't sit on two chairs with the same butt and really again we'd beg to differ here but in any
event with the cake expression i mean it's your cake why can't you eat it too surely that can't
be the original expression as it also doesn't really make any sense as written the phrase was
actually used as early as 1538 in a letter from thomas howard the third duke of norfolk to thomas
cromwell chief minister of king henry viii in the letter found an archived by british history online
the duke of norfolk writes i require you to send me buy this bearer my will which ye have
sealed in a box i must alter things therein for my substance in money inn's plate is not so good now
by 2000 a man cannot have his cake and eat his cake the game was later published in a dialogue
containing proverbs and epigrams by john hayward in 1562. hayward switches the clauses so it reads
woad ye both eat your cake and how your cake over the next few hundred years the phrase regularly
showed up in books plays and other writings for instance in 1738 the phrase showed up in jonathan
swift's political satire polite conversation when the character lady answer all exclaims she cannot
eat her cake and have her cake linguists have debated for years of the proper order
of the verb phrases up until the 19th or 20th centuries more often than not the proverb would
read in some variation of you can't eat your cake and have it too which of course makes a
tad more sense than the modern version though in the end the basic sentiment is the same once you
eat your cakes there is no more cake but according to google angrem viewer a handy tracker of usage
of phrases in published works over time somewhere between 1938 and 1939 the percentage switched and
you can't have your cake and eat it too became more prevalent right around this time president
franklin d roosevelt used the now less common version of the proverb in his 1940 state of
the union address when referring to the need to increase spending for national defense stating
as will appear in the annual budget tomorrow the only important increase in any part of the budget
is the estimate for national defense practically all other important items show reduction but you
know you can't eat your cake and have it too as alluded to some linguists have insisted
that the have eat iteration is not correct due to the actual plausibility of the statement
you in fact can have your cake and then eat it that isn't impossible therefore it negates what
the actual idiom stands for not unlike the common error of saying i could care less when one means
i could not care less on the other hand eating it and then having it is impossible and absurd hence
why this statement is in fact the correct turn of phrase there's an interesting aside despite the
have eat aversion being more prevalent in today's society one amateur lingquist in particular
insisted on using the correct version in a manifesto he wrote that person was theodore
j kaczynski aka the unabomber and his insistence on using the correct version actually helped him
get caught the unabomber had been mailing and placing homemade bombs aimed at maiming people
who were involved with modern technology since 1978. the fbi had been trying to track him down
for decades finally in april 1995 the fbi had a break in the case when the unabomber's manifesto
entitled industrial society and its future were sent to major publications across the country
and was under the threat of violence demanded to be released to the public if it was with
conditions met he promised to stop his bombings in september 1995 it was published in the new york
times and washington post in it he derides that the industrial revolution has been a disaster for
the human race and calls for a revolution against technology additionally he provides this phrase
as for the negative consequences of eliminating industrial society well you can't eat your cake
and have it too to gain one thing you have to sacrifice another upon seeing this phrasing
in the morning paper david kaczynski finally decided his wife might be right and his brother
really might be the unabomber for the whole lives their mother would correct them and insist that
this was the correct usage of the phrase this and other similarities in ted's writing style
and his political beliefs convinced david that he needed to speak up david passed this information
along with old family letters demonstrating ted's writing style to the fbi who employed forensic
linguists to compare the manifesto to other pieces of writing ted had given to his family
this information and other stylistic evidence convinced a judge to submit a search warrant
on april 3 1996 ted kozinski was arrested by the fbi at his cabin deep in the woods of montana his
own demand to be heard did him in as the unabomber would say you can't eat your cake and have it too
and speaking of the unabomber there's but to do or die in his 1854 perm the challenge of
the light brigade alfred lord tennyson pens the famous line there's not a reason why
there's but to do or die again we see the common misquote completely changes the meaning of the
passage in the original the charging cavalry no they are likely on a suicide mission into
the valley of death to do and die but with the misquote it sounds as if the soldiers believe that
they can survive the mission if only they try hard enough to do or die and speaking of dying hell
has no fury like a woman scorned this frequently quoted adaptation of a line from william congreves
the morning bride from 1697 is an improvement on the original both in terms of clarity and brevity
congreve's original line was heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned nor hell a fury like
a woman scorned the shortened version focuses on the basic theme of the line beware betrayed
women speaking of women and revenge miramira on the wall who's the fairest of them all
in the 1937 disney classics snow white's evil stepmother the queen is a self-absorbed psychopath
and also a witch she keeps a magic mirror handy in asking the famous question what she really said
was magic mirror on the wall who is the fairest of them all truly a slight modification it is notable
that in the adapted version the mirror is just a mirror but in the original he's more like a person
and moving on from there houston we have a problem on saturday april the 11th 1970
astronauts jim lovell jack swingett and fred hayes were shot out of earth's orbit during the apollo
13 mission two days later catastrophe struck and they lost their normal source of light water and
electricity having the right stuff master of understatement swagger calmly noted after the
explosion and alarms went off not houston we have a problem but rather houston we've had a problem
this is a slightly more optimistic view of the situation if you think about it of course with
a lot of help from the team in houston the crew safely splashed down in the south pacific on april
the 17th though the mission itself was technically a failure in terms of not accomplishing
its original goals next up elementary my dear watson sometimes quoted as elementary dear watson
this is one of those phrases that everybody knows the character of sherlock holmes said
and commonly quotes it when trying to act particularly intelligent you know just like
everyone knows that kirk said beam me up scotty and darth vader said luke i am your father the
thing is none of those characters ever said any of those things they said things that were similar
certainly but they never actually said those exact words despite the fact that most people think they
did like luke i am your father which was actually no i am your father holmes never actually said
elementary my dear watson in any of the original 56 short stories or four novels starring his
character the closest he comes is in the adventure of the crooked man in this story holmes uses both
the word elementary and the phrase my dear watson in somewhat close proximity the two however are
not uttered together i have the advantage of knowing your habits my dear watson said he when
your round is a short one you walk and when it is a long one you use a handsome as i perceive
that your boots although used are by no means dirty i cannot doubtful that you are at present
busy enough to justify the handsome excellent i cried elementary he said beyond that there are
only seven other instances of the word elementary being uttered in the official sherlock holmes
works although he does say my dear watson numerous times with a phrase appearing in about two-thirds
of the original stories sometimes several times within a given story it's noted by sherlockian.net
one of the foremost sources on everything to do with sherlock holmes that although holmes never
actually uses the oft misquoted phrase elementary my dear watson he does use the phrase exactly my
dear watson in three different stories for example in his last bow where holmes uses the phrase in a
shoddy attempt to mask the obvious sexual tension between himself and his manservant or you know to
agree to watson's point so where did the phrase elementary my dear watson come from well the first
known or at least recorded use of the phrase was in the 1915 novel smith journalist written by pg
woodhouse we should point out that the book in no way shape or form stars sherlock holmes in
fact the sherlock holmes stories were still being published at this point we should also point out
that though smith journalist was published as a novel in 1915 it was a serial before that
putting the date of the first known usage of the phrase in 1909. the exact first known instance of
elementary my dear watson which appears in that work is as follows i fancy said smith that this
is one of those moments where it is necessary for me to unlimb my sherlock holmes system as thus
if the rent collector had been there it is certain i think that comrade spaghetti or whatever you
said his name was wouldn't have been that is to say if the rent collector had called out and found
no money waiting for him surely comrade spaghetti would have been out in the cold night instead of
under his own roof tree do you follow me comrade maloney that's right said billy windsor of course
elementary my dear watson elementary mammoth smith woodhouse's work was noted to have taken obvious
cues from doyle's as as you perhaps guessed from the fact that woodhouse ended up writing one of
the most enduring quotes for a character that he didn't create going still with the misquotes from
popular entertainment play it again sam released in 1942 and starring humphrey bogart and ingrid
bergman casablanca still rates as the second best movie of all time behind citizen kane according
to the american film institute regardless the oft-repeated line was never uttered in the film
furthermore although many attribute the adapted version to beaugar the closest thing to it comes
from bergman's character ulsa who says play it once sam play it damn and finally we have nice
guys finish last leo derosia managed the brooklyn dodgers 1939-1948 new york giants
1948-1955 chicago cubs 1966-1972 and houston astros 1972-1973 leo's famous one-liner came when
he was coaching the dodgers the original quote was actually why they're the nicest guys in the world
and where are they in seventh place where the line never changed it's likely it would have
soon been lost to history but shortening it down to its essence newsmen and baseball fans
converted a simple comment on the 1946 giants into a transcendent statement about the nature
of all mankind and the sad fate of all the nice guys out there who if the world was fair
would always finish first so i really hope you found this video interesting if you did please
do hit that thumbs up button below don't forget to subscribe thank you for watching