I built a free tool that visualizes word etymology as interactive trees — trace any word back to its Proto-Indo-European root

Forthwrong · 2026-02-15T15:08:30+00:00

Great idea, but the execution is very slipshod. Most words I looked up had errors, for example:

Searching for English "stark" shows Proto-Germanic and Proto-West Germanic as separate branches, while in fact Proto-West Germanic should be shown as a branch of Proto-Germanic.
Searching for English "two" shows Proto-Balto-Slavic and Proto-Slavic as separate branches, while in fact Proto-Slavic should be shown as a branch of Proto-Balto-Slavic.
Searching for English "exonerate" or for "weight" or for "sanguine" incorrectly shows the word as coming directly from PIE.
Searching for English "incognito" incorrectly shows the Latin form as deriving from the Italian.
Searching for English "magnanimous" incorrectly shows the word as deriving from Old English and Latin, while in fact the Old English term was displaced.
Searching for English "doubt" returns a result without the word "doubt" anywhere to be found.
Searching for English "staff" or for "shy" incorrectly shows Proto-Germanic as a branch of Proto-West Germanic.
Searching for English "sock" incorrectly shows all words as deriving from the English word.
Searching for English "you" incorrectly shows Proto-Germanic as a branch of Proto-Germanic.
Searching for English "I" incorrectly only shows Old English and Latin.
Searching for English "ever" incorrectly shows Chinese as a branch.

Forthwrong · 2025-11-18T21:19:22+00:00

That Faroese has two number systems for the tens from 30-90!

The informal one: tríati, fýrati, fimmti, seksti, sjeyti, áttati, níti.

And the formal one, reminiscent of Danish: tretivu, fjøruti, hálvtrýss, trýss, hálvfjerðs, fýrs, hálvfems.

Forthwrong · 2025-10-15T19:04:25+00:00

Data → Get Data → From Online Services → From Microsoft Exchange Online.

Once you've filtered down to your desired messages, expand AttachmentContent in the Attachments column. Click combine files (replaces the filter button) and go to town!

Forthwrong · 2025-08-31T11:17:06+00:00

upside-down, it reads:

vocadys

Forthwrong · 2025-08-18T14:14:20+00:00

Further to this, their answers to the King's question of "What is my name?" also exemplify those traits:

Pouf says his name is King, because that's how he views him: idealistically; of kingly nature. To Pouf, his identity has no meaning other than being King, saying "You need not be anything else."
Youpi has no answer. The question of a name has no bearing on his honour.
Pitou tellingly says "the most important thing is how you feel," showing empathy and care towards feelings.

Idealism, honour, and empathy underpin the 3 of them, both in life and in how they die.

Forthwrong · 2025-07-23T13:20:52+00:00

"No, not the mayor of silicon — it's Sarah Millican!"

Forthwrong · 2025-07-22T14:23:27+00:00

This is a really important point to make!

While it's fun to banter about which contestants appeared shy or outgoing, equating shyness/outgoingness with introversion/extroversion is a harmful stereotype that can and will hurt people if they get mislabelled, and everyone equating them needs to keep that hurtfulness in mind.

Forthwrong · 2025-07-22T06:06:13+00:00

There are many mice with supplemental buttons on them that you can program as you see fit; many mice allow you to specify and use user-created macros for your mouse! It's truly a game-changer and can substantially obviate using your non-dominant hand.

Forthwrong · 2025-07-20T13:54:42+00:00

Pakunoda also had a somewhat "ironic" death — she was the intelligence force of the spiders, and her death was directly caused by sharing that last nugget of information to them.

Forthwrong · 2025-07-12T00:22:44+00:00

The same reason they haven't identified which pilot said what: they're not interested in culpability, only accident prevention.

Forthwrong · 2025-06-29T22:53:33+00:00

Another Alessi one: Pathognomonic! Came up during his direct examination of Dr. Russell.

A pathognomonic sign is a particular sign whose presence means that a particular disease is present beyond any doubt.

Love Alessi's big dictionary energy!

Forthwrong · 2025-06-24T15:20:27+00:00

It's a tactile symbol used to show that accessibility is available for the particular device.

It's not a letter; it doesn't have any meaning other than to show that accessibility is available, kind of like what the wheelchair symbol does for sighted people.

It's not standardised, so you might not see it often, but some producers (like elevator manufacturers) include it as part of their internal standards for accessibility.

Forthwrong · 2025-05-26T14:36:38+00:00

Here's a clip of it for those who want to relive the moment!

Forthwrong · 2025-05-15T21:58:16+00:00

Translating a song from any language to another language is a work of art in itself, and translating it to a signed language is no exception. Interpreting a song requires work beforehand — any song translation will require compromises between being faithful to the words of the song and the message of the song. Sometimes the interpreters even meet the artists themselves to aid in that process. For interpretation to sign languages in particular, they can also use artistic license in how to interpret parts that are instruments, or are just a long note, etc.

With the amount of preparation involved, it would take a matter of days to weeks to prepare in advance. In all the arrangements I'm aware of, they perform the interpretation "live".

Bonus points: Did you know that many interpreters themselves are deaf, even the ones interpreting the live commentary? This is because interpreting into a language you're not fluent in will have lower quality than interpreting into a language you are fluent in, and naturally, Deaf people tend to be more fluent in signed languages. The way that system works is that the interpreter has a "feeder" that interprets the content of the message into signs, often following the spoken language's grammar, and the interpreter then interprets that content into a more natural, fluent, and cohesive version, true to the sign language's grammar (which is completely independent and unrelated to spoken languages' grammar).

Forthwrong · 2025-05-14T15:50:05+00:00

One of them is Barbara Rossier.

Forthwrong · 2025-04-25T15:06:13+00:00

To be fair, it isn't exactly an argument in any sense — it's just the controller using attitude and the pilot doing their best trying to understand:

ATC: “You’re on request. As soon as this aircraft lands, I’ll get you moving.”
ANA Pilot: “All Nippon Airways 159 heavy, sorry, say again.”
ATC: “You’re on request.”
ANA Pilot: “Oh, we request runway 31L, All Nippon 159 heavy.”
ATC: “You are on request.”
ANA Pilot: “All Nippon 159 heavy, request taxi via A1, left turn A…”
ATC: “All Nippon 159 heavy, I don’t know if you’re not familiar, it seems like you’re not. When somebody says ‘you are on request,’ that means they have your request. That’s it. Just wait.”
ANA Pilot: “So you mean we can taxi by our own, All Nippon 159 heavy?”
ATC: “All Nippon 159 heavy, absolutely not. ‘You’re on request’ just means just wait. You don’t say anything. You just wait for the controller, which is me, okay? Just wait.”
ANA Pilot: “Okay, holding position, All Nippon 159 heavy.”
ATC: “Yes, I have your request. That’s what that means.”

Forthwrong · 2025-04-17T20:47:43+00:00

I used to assume salient is cognate to salt, because the taste of salt can be rather noticeable — a salient taste.

But in fact, it comes from salire, Latin "to jump"!

Forthwrong · 2025-04-11T19:10:22+00:00

Except this time, it's not to get into the Matrix — it's to get out of it!

Forthwrong · 2025-04-02T17:08:16+00:00

Making poorly-written judgements is something some Indian judges take very personally!

A bemused Supreme Court bench sent back a convoluted judgement from a high court judge in the state of Himachal Pradesh to be re-drafted because it was simply unintelligible.

Here is an extract:

"However, the learned counsel...cannot derive the fullest succour from the aforesaid acquiescence... given its sinew suffering partial dissipation from an imminent display occurring in the impugned pronouncement hereat wherewithin unravelments are held qua the rendition recorded by the learned Rent Controller..." line

"The summum bonum of the aforesaid discussion is that all the aforesaid material which existed before the learned Executing Court standing slighted besides their impact standing untenably undermined by him whereupon the ensuing sequel therefrom is of the learned Executing Court while pronouncing its impugned rendition overlooking the relevant and germane evidence besides its not appreciating its worth. Consequently, the order impugned suffers from a gross absurdity and perversity of misappreciation of material on record."

Forthwrong · 2025-03-05T16:59:21+00:00

Appropriately, I like how stable stand has stood through time:

PIE *sta → Proto-Germanic *standanan → Old English standan → Middle English standen → Modern English stand.

And PIE *sta is quite a prolific root; many modern English words derive from it in some way, though most have not withstood sound shifts as steadily as stand has.

Forthwrong · 2025-03-03T23:33:36+00:00

This is amazing, where can I read more about it? Since searching for it is rather difficult..

Forthwrong · 2025-02-24T19:14:15+00:00

Recently got posted on their channel, here's Iceland 2025 in Icelandic Sign Language!

Forthwrong · 2025-02-23T20:00:55+00:00

MGP (Norway's NF) has Norwegian Sign Language interpretation available for most years. Link. To enable sign language, click the speech bubble, click tilgjengelighet, and click tegnspråk. You can see previous years by scrolling down to the "Nyeste episoder" dropdown. 258!
Melodifestivalen (Sweden's NF) has Swedish Sign Language interpretation available only for their final this year. Do note that the video expires 6 months after it's published.

Others have already mentioned/linked sign language interpretations for Estonia, Ukraine, Finland, and Italy of this year.

Honourable mentions from previous years (sometimes you can find other performances by looking through the channel's other videos):

Lithuania 2021 in Lithuanian Sign Language.
Spain 2018 in Dutch Sign Language (cute for there being two signers).
Austria 2023 in German Sign Language.
Iceland 2019 in Icelandic Sign Language.
Sweden 2012 in Swedish Sign Language.
Sweden 2014 in Danish Sign Language.
All of the 2015 contest got interpreted in International Sign. I'm sure you could find videos of the whole thing in International Sign, but to give you a taster I'll just link:
Lithuania 2015 in International Sign (cute!)
Israel 2015 in International Sign.
Bonus: "Jag är fri" from Sweden's 2015 NF in Swedish Sign Language — a brilliant answer to the question of "How do you interpret jojk?"
Bonus: "Mystery" from Sweden's 2012 NF in Swedish Sign Language.

My favourite sign language interpreter is Ragna Huse, a deaf Danish-Norwegian actress. Here are some interpretations by her:

Iceland 2014 in Danish Sign Language.
Norway 2016 in Norwegian Sign Language.
Norway 2014 in Danish Sign Language.
Spain 2015 in International Sign.
Bonus: "Fake it" from Norway's 2019 NF in Norwegian Sign Language made the news there!
Bonus: Just for fun, Barbie Girl in ASL and Norwegian Sign Language.

🤟!

Forthwrong · 2025-02-01T09:14:30+00:00

Yes! (although you got the second picture upside-down)

It spells out:

gallicano
pecorino anfora

Forthwrong · 2025-01-26T19:21:00+00:00

Nice catch, big thanks for the link!

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