The English words nobody can explain
Some of the most ordinary words in English have origins that no one can explain. Among them: "dog", "big", "bird", "donkey", "boy", "girl" and "puzzle".
The entire history of English in 22 minutes
In this video you'll learn about where English came from, what impact the Vikings had on our language, what the Normans did to English, why Middle English is so weird,…
Time words don’t mean what you think
What is a second the "second" of? What time should noon actually be? And how can "hour" and "year" mean the same thing (because they do!)?
Why English is full of silent letters
English has a silent letter problem. The situation is so out of hand that it's often said that every letter of the alphabet can be found silent somewhere in our…
Why doesn’t English have genders? Well… it did!
Pretty much every other language seems to have grammatical genders… so why doesn't English? Well, it used to. Old English had three genders, meaning there were at least three different…
British country names explained
Why is 🏴England named after the Angles and not the Saxons? Does 🏴"Welsh" really mean slave? And where was the original 🏴Scotland? These questions answered and many more on this…
Where did our numbers come from?
Why do our numbers look the way they look? Why do we count the way we count? These questions answered and many more in this video looking at where English…
Where does punctuation come from?!
In this episode I trace the punctuation we use every day as far back as I can. ❓Is the question mark actually a word? ❗️Where did the exclamation mark come…