• Noel_Skum@sh.itjust.works
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        7 months ago

        It could be to do with something called “ablaut reduplication”. Very basically English has a - kind of - untaught sound order that native speakers inherently apply to the language. Wikipedia will have an article to explain it better. Specifically the vowel order I-A-O. A great example is the phrase “Bish bash bosh” which is getting coverage recently. (One notable exception is “shit, shower, shave” but that is probably down to the chronology of the actions.)

    • BinetteOP
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      7 months ago

      It’s not really that I interpret it in another way, but I never really thought about the structure of the word 😅

    • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
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      7 months ago

      I think the pronunciation, specifically the blending of the end of “upside” and beginning of “down”, turns it into one of those compound words that your brain interprets as an independent word, rather than a combination of its composite parts.

      • s38b35M5@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Unused to wonder if the radio announcers that are always reciting the station call letters found that the letters stopped sounding like individual sounds, and the whole recitation became a sort of “word” for them. Like “You’re listening to 102.9FM WBLM!” Did it stop being “double-you bee ell emm,” and turn into more of a mashup of “dubbleyabeeyelmm”?

        True, the difference is pretty subtle, especially to a listener, but I wonder strange things sometimes…

        • Kiosade@lemmy.ca
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          7 months ago

          As a fellow wonderer of strange things, all I have to say is keep wondering, my friend :)

      • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        I think this is the case for a lot of words. It ceases to be a combination of words and it’s just one word. Then in the shower you break it down and ohhh.

  • xkbx@startrek.website
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    7 months ago

    Wait until you find out “bottoms up” isn’t about a group of people taking an elevator to get mimosas

    • BinetteOP
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      7 months ago

      In French, it’s also the same origin (nouvelles = news; nouvelle/nouveau = new)

      • CoggyMcFee@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        A good rule of thumb is that any word etymology that is an acronym is probably false if the word is more than 100 years old.

  • Ticklemytip@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    TIL that people didn’t get this. I had a similar situation where I would pronounce unleaded as unleeded

    • zarkanian@sh.itjust.works
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      7 months ago

      Oh, I used to do this all the time. You see a word in print, but you never hear anybody say it, so you wind up pronouncing it wrong.

      I think the best was when I pronounced “misled” as my-seld because I thought it was the past tense of “misle”.

  • NorthWestWind@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Does “right-side up” mean the right side is up or the “right” side is up? English does not make sense

    also hi binette

    • akakunai@lemmy.ca
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      7 months ago

      Took me until high school to realize bonjour=bon jour=good day. My brain just about exploded. Worldview destroyed.

  • InFerNo
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    7 months ago

    I’m my language it’s “bottom up” (ondersteboven).

    Also came to a similar realization in my language with “averechts”, which means the other way around.

    Rechts = right (side, from my pov)

    Averechts = ave ( dialect for “your”) right side.

    You’re basically communicating “my right or your right”. Asking for right or left can be done by saying rechts or averechts.

    Also besides ondersteboven and averechts, we have achterstevoren, which means back side in front.

  • zarkanian@sh.itjust.works
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    7 months ago

    This reminds me of the time I had a co-worker tell me “That’s why they call it ‘work’. 'Cause you’re working!”

    • BinetteOP
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      7 months ago

      I mean it’s more that it’s “working” because it’s “work”

      • MufinMcFlufin@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Apparently “W” was originally written as “uu” as early as ~600AD, hence the name, however it still used Latin/Roman letters which hadn’t yet distinguished between u and v as letters. For at least 700 years, u and v appear to have been considered the same and interchangeable (so "Double U " could look like “uu” or “vv”) but it depends on your language whether it was verbally called a “U” or a “V” until the first recorded distinction between the two in a Gothic era alphabet written in 1386. The two apparently did still see some overlap in use until about the 1700s with the turning point appearing to be when the distinction between their capital forms was accepted by the French Academy in 1726.

        tl;dr: “Double U” predates the distinction between “U” and “V” so it’s up to chance which letter a language called it before it stuck.

    • d00phy@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      IIRC from high school, they taught us “V” was “Vega” and “W” was “doble Vega”. Looking at Wikipedia, I may be remembering that wrong. They have “ve” and “doble ve”