xbox wrote this in a previous lesson that I thought rather interesting:-
‘I found this very interesting and learned a lot. Hope you do too.
The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn’t just how you like it, think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about the 1500s:
In the Spring they;
the towns people would get their berries sprouting, sometimes to early. the Winter, as we all know in the early months of April, especially in England, are very unstable, it could all of a sudden ice out of nowhere. So, People would have to throw straw over the tops of the berries to insulate them, and keep them from spoiling from over exposure to the weather. Hence the name (Strawberries)’
On a highly related issue, when I was a kid, we used to have lunch on a nice marble slab in Barry Cemetery. Just off 69 Hwy north of the river in what used to be a one-horse town named Barry, but is now a part of Kansas City, Missouri. We enjoyed spending time with the silent majority.
Last April, I visited the town of Strawberry, Arizona. The state’s first schoolhouse is located there. I guess the kids who attendd school there grew up to be smart. Berry smart.
tiger13cd on
August 4th, 2008 7:44 am
strawberry are great with cream and a beautiful woman like you…
waterseven on
August 1st, 2008 11:08 am
Soy = 1679, saio “sauce for fish, made from soybeans,” from Du. soya, from Japanese soyu, variant of shoyu “soy,” from Chinese shi-yu, from shi “fermented soy beans” + yu “oil.” Etymology reflects Dutch presence in Japan long before English merchants began to trade there.
nyagwaispiritbear on
August 1st, 2008 2:38 am
How about we do the definition of “give them the raspberry” LOL
Strawberries for me. Gosh Marina, your lucky to be living in L.A where its sunny and happy every day of the week.
God I hate fog.
davecodave on
July 30th, 2008 6:48 pm
My Favorite Berry is….. Marion Berry. Or maybe it’s Chuck Berry…..of course there is always Barry Williams (brady bunch). Then I am quite fond of the New York Razz Berry.
tomping61 on
July 30th, 2008 4:05 pm
MARINA-strawberries are good.what about mayberry ?
duke veritas on
July 30th, 2008 1:58 pm
милашка et al.,
Which berries? Depends on the purpose
For dessert: strawberries & raspberries
For cereal: blueberries.
For drinks: cranberries (for vodka), cherries (for other liquors)
runawayscott on
July 30th, 2008 1:54 pm
I gotta go with strawberries, if only because it’s fun watching Marina eat them
ANyway, I would like to request a video on the word ghoul
parthenophilast on
July 30th, 2008 1:08 pm
My favorite berry is the tomato. My second favorite is the sea buckthorn and my third favorite is the barberry. And, yes, Bob is right: the banana is a true berry. I took a botany course in college.
hot for words! please solve my poker card game mystery and why poker called poker? your not poking anybody, its a card game!
pretty please help me put my mind to rest on this one, thank!
Shawn ooo
roadrunrnch on
July 30th, 2008 11:56 am
Guys,
Don’t miss Marinas appearance on the Bill O’reilly Show on the 31th.
Here is his email address, yip it up. oreilly@foxnews.com.
Marina,
Did Bill ask for any special word ie, Hypocrite, Tartuffe or Pharisee. Just kidding, I like Bill.
I like his tantrums when someone disagrees with Him.
He’s a little supercilious but ……….?
stutmeup on
July 30th, 2008 11:49 am
Why are Fingers called phylanes instead of just fingers
pennsyltucky9 replied on July 30th, 2008 12:42 pm:
The bones of the fingers are called the phalanges.
I know what I wanted to ask you Marina, I want my videos to say watch in high quality (like yours do.. ) How do you make them do that.. What camera do you have? James
xx
I tought you needed a bitrate of at least 600kbps and uploud the vid in xvid or divx, not sure. Do a search on it, “how to get high quality on youtube” on yt im sure you’ll find the answer.
James, make sure you upload your videos with a size of 640×480 and I use H.264 encoding at a 3000 kbps encoding rate… My older videos where I uploaded them at 320×240 I don’t think they do a high quality version of them.
When you compress your videos… where do you tell it the bit rate? it would be 3 Mbps or 3000 kbps.. I don’t think that rate is that important though as long as it’s 600 kbps I think minimum
Somtimes I just upload them straight from movie maker.. I just tried to convert a video like you said and now its saying windows explorer has stopped working and rundll32 doesnt work.. Its getting better now. But when it fixes itself… I will try again… Thanks
YAAAY! We finally get a good enough close-up of Marina’s cute little toes…..niiice. And her nail polish is strawberry colored too!
Well, now that I got that excitement out of the way, I like cherries, strawberries, blackberries, and sometimes raspberries. Especially as preserve spread or syrup.
I also read somewhere that the strawberry was a member of the rose family.
Capman,
Remember Russia is where a lot of the true intellect in the world came from.
The Continent in which Russia lies. True to form Marina is proof. At 21-ish, She is the Brightest Youtube Star in the Sky.
Don’t let that sweet looking demeanor deceive you. Inside Her beats the heart of an Catherine the Great.
i beg to differ.
it’s more like the pleasure or joy you feel when something bad happened to someone else.
jollygood on
July 30th, 2008 9:11 am
where did the term foo fighters come from?
mrglv on
July 30th, 2008 8:44 am
Hi Marina, can you please explain etymology of expression
“catch 22″. Heard it has something to do with some stupid army rule but i’m not shure. Would you investigate?
Spasibo
Martin Cashman, OMG! I think I broke my gut. That was just hilarious! I love Mr. Bean original sketches.
mistress9nine on
July 30th, 2008 8:22 am
Hi Marina!
I was reading PerezHilton today and it said something about Miley Cyrus’ new record. And I though: Which record did she break? But then I realized he meant record as in CD. How come the two are the same? Could you explain why?
wouter on
July 30th, 2008 8:18 am
Hi Marina,
Somehow I can’t watch your lessons anymore from this site but only from youtube. Any idea what might be causing this?
As a amitious student I didn’t miss even one lesson but I would like it better to watch directly from your website.
Thanks and keep up the good work!
Wouter from the Netherlands
Do the videos play for you now? There was some code missing and I found the problem and fixed it.
Let me know.
Thanks!
Marina
wouter replied on August 1st, 2008 7:53 am:
Hi Marina,
All work for me now, thanks for fixing the issue!
I wish my dear teacher a nice weekend and I promise to keep on doing my best with the lessons in the future
Wouter
rajbhai87 on
July 30th, 2008 8:02 am
I would like to know what was the first word to come into the English language from Sanskrit, Hindi, or the other languages of India.
felicity on
July 30th, 2008 7:35 am
Hello, everyone. I didn’t know that foreign people call that kanji ‘tycoon’. That’s interesting, because no Japanese people read it that way. We say ‘Okimi’ when reading it. Are there any other Japanese people on this site and how do you read ‘大君’ if there are?
It’s because Japanese People use the Chinese keys as hieroglyphs :
In Chinese 大君 is read as DAI JUN “high lord”.
In Japanese you use the Chinese 大 but pronounce it in Japanese word おお =OO = “great” + 君 = きみ = KIMI “lord” so OO + KIMI = OOKIMI.
In fact Japanese uses Chinese like English or French uses Greek for making scholastical words.
Example : MEGALOS KURIOS “great lord” could become MEGALOKYRE in English or in French. It’s only a question of civilization.
I think dictionaricdotcom is right, and that Tycoon was only a loan word from Chinese, when westerners borrowed it from Japanese.
It’s amusing to try using the various on-line translators to see how they translate 大君.
Chinese to English –> Father (in Yahoo Babelfish)
In another it gives Maharaja.
For Japanese to English, Babelfish gives “Large you”
OK, maybe they are trying to emulate the British predilection for understatement.
However one can see the connections; Ty or Tai in Chinese can mean Great or Supreme as in Typhoon (Supreme Wind).
In Thai, Indonesian and some Indian languages Maha also means Great or Supreme as in Maharaja (Great Prince or King in Indian and Indonesian) and Phra Maha Nakhon (Honourable Great City or Capital City in Thai) (As an aside, Raja not only means Prince or King in Indonesian but also Great, so Maharaja is literally Great Great One.)
I believe 君 in Chinese can mean Mister; I don’t know how the Chinese pronounce it, but Khun is also used for You and Mister in Thai.
Is there a word in Japanese, that sounds like Khun or Coon and if so, what does it mean?
matalexwolf on
July 30th, 2008 7:29 am
Hi M, could you help us out here please? When catching up with an old freind of mine, he claims he has noble ansestory dateing back
ages. A Baron. According to my dictionary, Baron, is the lowest order of British Nobility however, it also relates to a double Sirloin! A Baron of Beef! Is this where ‘Sir’-loin comes from in some way or why whould a knight be named after a cows loins? Could HFW’s please investigate? Thank you once again
matalexwolf on
July 30th, 2008 7:05 am
Strawberries and Cream, it’s the only way to be……….
Have always grown Stawberries with a bed of straw then chase after a cow to get the cream
pennsyltucky9 replied on July 30th, 2008 1:00 pm:
We put straw around the plants for two reasons: 1.) it helps retain soil moisture because the straw is light-reflective to protect it from the heat of the noonday sun while slowing the evaporative effects of wind over bare soil, and 2.) the straw provides a soft, clean mattress for the actual berries so they are less likely to sit directly in the dirt (or mud, which results from daily watering) as well as protecting them from contact with ground-dwelling insects, molds, fungus, etc.
matalexwolf replied on October 10th, 2008 2:27 am:
I saw this in a previous post by xbox and thought of you pennsyltucky9. Quite interesting
‘I found this very interesting and learned a lot. Hope you do too.
The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn’t just how you like it, think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about the 1500s:
In the Spring they;
the towns people would get their berries sprouting, sometimes to early. the Winter, as we all know in the early months of April, especially in England, are very unstable, it could all of a sudden ice out of nowhere. So, People would have to throw straw over the tops of the berries to insulate them, and keep them from spoiling from over exposure to the weather. Hence the name (Strawberries)’
darn it , i wanted to ask strawberry but tought it was because of the straw they lay on the ground .
Favorite berry ….blueberry’s!!!! In Finland we have loads of them in the woods, I love picking them. Comming home with a few gallons of blueberrys awsome!!, they’re even better with some sugar and milk.
orion_ss1 on
July 30th, 2008 6:55 am
My favorite is a mixture of sliced cantalope, with strawberries ( also sliced ), and blueberries ( not sliced ) mixed in.
Someone else mentioned boysenberries; try some boysenberry syrup on peanutbutter waffles!
smartgirly on
July 30th, 2008 6:45 am
A WORD REQUEST
WIDOW!! which means that you were married but your husband died days,weeks,months,years after you were married but i still don’tget why they called the womens husbands widowed!!
laterkatergator on
July 30th, 2008 6:03 am
My word requests:
gay meaning homosexual
one night stand
Dear Marina, can You explain what mean (or how explanation is about) Rendl, respectively Randall or Rondel? Have they any shackled-origin?
I came from Czech Republic.
Drahá Marino. Můžeš mi, prosím Tě, vysvětlit, odkud pochází slovo Rendl, respektive Randall nebo jinak Rondel? Souvisejí tato slova mezi sebou nějakým způsobem?
I have no proof but I feel that my explanation is the correct one :
RENDL Czech = RONDEL Polish = RUNDEL Deutsch “etwas round” = “something round”.
In French RONDELLE = SLICE.
The Germanic ROUND/RUND is taken from the Latin ROTUNDUS “having the shape of a wheel”. ROTA = WHEEL.
prospero811 on
July 30th, 2008 4:53 am
Blueberries for sure! Yum.
geobaldi5 on
July 30th, 2008 4:29 am
Hello Marina
I was wondering where the phrase “to hell in a handbasket” originated from. You don’t hear it now as much as you used to, so it makes you wonder even more when you do
Privet Marina,
Ya gavado parusky neochen harasaho.
Maybe you will have a section of your website to teach Americans to speak Russian?
kevlar0013 on
July 30th, 2008 4:10 am
Hi, for a word request; I’d like to know where the word ‘bonfire’ comes from. I’ve seen it in quite some American movies and series; but where does it originate from?
So is some lady and it turns out to be a porno site.
pennsyltucky9 replied on July 30th, 2008 1:22 pm:
Hi James,
There’s a reason I don’t read YT comments. This is a prime example.
Why did you decide to bring this person’s lack of good judgment to our attention in our word etymology forum? It gives even more exposure to that which deserves none in the first place. In my opinion, there’s no sense in even reading YT comments, so do me a favor and try not to drag them in here for all to smell. Let’s transcend (read: ignore) off-subject chatter, especially about topics that are normally considered taboo for dinner-table conversation (like politics and religion). Nobody is likely to agree with anyone else on such personal-choice issues anyway. The mere mention of these subjects only ignite long and fruitless flame wars which waste a lot of time, generate enemies, and accomplish nothing. Thanks in advance for understanding.
Perhaps you misunderstood me PT9, I only wrote it because it was funny like saying “buy double glazing and get a can of baked beans” It was just some humour
robertmagee92 has a good request what is heads or tails
blueskies13 on
July 30th, 2008 2:50 am
WORD REQUEST !!! what does it mean when some one tells you to stop pestering people or with some things
blueskies13 on
July 30th, 2008 2:47 am
straw is placed under the berries to keep them high and dry from rotting on the wet ground after a rain and also to prevent to many bugs from ruining the crop
abujabers on
July 30th, 2008 2:47 am
where does the expression, pop the cherry come from
Hi hotforwords, nice video as always..i was wondering where the term “Heads & tails” comes from. I can understand the head part but the tails is bugging me. Can you investigate?
Thanks xx
lostinhere on
July 30th, 2008 2:06 am
My favorite berry is boysenberry.
pennsyltucky9 on
July 30th, 2008 1:22 am
The strawberries from my garden are nice and ripe right now. As for a favorite, I have to go with wild blueberries and huckleberries, although blackberries and raspberries are definitely right in there as well.
There’s also a close relative of the blackberry that grows on a thorny vine which trails very low across the ground and is commonly called a dewberry around the area where I grew up. These look just like blackberries and can sometimes grow to twice the size of the largest blackberries. They are much sweeter than a blackberry when fully ripe. Dewberries are best in the early morning when the ground is still cold and wet with heavy dew, hence the name. They also deserve a place of honor among my favorite berries. Yum!
blueskies13 on
July 30th, 2008 1:16 am
also is cherry my favorite a berry even if it does not have berry in the name
blueskies13 on
July 30th, 2008 1:13 am
marina i would like you to tell us the history of the coco bean and how it became sweet and traveled the world PLEASE
Straw in strawberries? I don’t think there is a straw in that fruit. Anyway, I like strawberries dipped in chocolate. Every year at any x-mas party I attend to they have a chocolate fountain to dip the strawberries in. I think anybody should try it. it’s good!
kenton88888888 on
July 29th, 2008 11:04 pm
Blueberries seem to keep fresh longer than other berries… they are awesome with grainy cereals. It’s a close call with strawberries, but I’d have to go with the blue for my favorite.
Oh, and I forgot to say please! …So, please!
much love!
kenton88888888 on
July 29th, 2008 10:57 pm
Heyyyy…
I was leaning back in my chair yesterday with some friends, and we began to discuss the meaning of ‘reclining.’ There is also the word incline… sooo… can you investigate?
RECLINING
much love!
tokiohotelgirl483 on
July 29th, 2008 10:54 pm
I just wanted to know if you could give us the origin of the word ‘kindergarten’. I believe ‘kinder’ is German for children. But where does ‘garten’ come from?
German GARTEN = English GARDEN. English and German are two germanic languages like Dutch, Danish, Norvegian, Swedish and Icelandic. Sometimes all these languages use the same or almost the same words. But sometimes you have surprises : GIFT means POISON in German and KIND means CHILD.
I forgot to say : ERDE = EARTH + BEERE = BERRY.
ERDBEERE “earthberry” = STRAWBERRY.
STROH = STRAW
athoorth replied on July 30th, 2008 8:44 am:
That explains why the name of Strawberries in Sweden are Jordgubbar, that trans lated are EarthMen…. kinda weird name really.
tedt on
July 29th, 2008 10:35 pm
tommysy on
July 29th, 2008 10:27 pm
So today at work a co worker of mine said he had to go to a Funeral, and he said why is the word fun in funeral, so i thought i would turn to my trustie Hotforwords, to see why does the word funeral have the word fun in it? But you havent done the word yet so then i must request the word Funeral
yeah, an anagram to “funeral” is “real fun”. i noticed that when watching “death at a funeral”. great movie, btw.
socksandviolins on
July 29th, 2008 10:25 pm
I ate a dingleberry when I was a small child. I haven’t eaten another berry since.
blueskies13 replied on July 30th, 2008 1:15 am:
HaHa who fooled you
bobcraw on
July 29th, 2008 10:17 pm
Hi Marina,
As a retired journalist, I, too, love words, but more specifically idiomatic expressions. What about this one?
“catch as catch can”
Both my mom and grandmother used this to mean “you’re on your own.” When my kids were growing up we shortened it to just “catch” which meant everybody had to get their own dinner because nothing special had been prepared. For example:
“hey Dad, what’s for supper?” “I don’t know, you’ll have to catch.”
Марина, the клубника is not a true berry, neither is the черница. My favorites are the малина and ежевика (which are almost the same, and are not true berries, either!)
hello marina the most common word in the world is OK how about the word ouch its got to be number two
pennsyltucky9 replied on July 30th, 2008 12:36 am:
Only in English. I’m pretty sure the Italian, French and Spanish-speakers all use “ai” instead of ow or ouch when in sudden pain. Not sure about other languages though. And there are quite a lot of other languages out there.
aladinsane replied on July 30th, 2008 4:14 am:
Hello,
In France, we use to say “Aïe!” or “Ouille!” for sudden pain.
Especially it is used when you’re a child, ’cause when you’re a grown up, you tend to say cuss words.
But that is another story
chimera91977 on
July 29th, 2008 7:57 pm
Do you know the origin of the word phrase “Xfold” like to “increase seven-fold” or “ten-fold”?
tamcajb on
July 29th, 2008 7:45 pm
Is it just me, or has there been a disturbingly sharp decline in cleavage the last few weeks? Does it have anything to do with the Youtube partner program, I wonder? Does Youtube withhold payment on videos they deem overly sexual?
I don’t know for sure, but I can’t help but notice that the tata to video ratio dove at around the same time the little red triangle started to appear on the corner of her videos. I hope this isn’t the case, but I can’t think of any other reasons for why Marina seemed so happy to oblige the hooter-lovin’ masses by displaying her masses one minute, then suddenly shelve the flesh-shelves the next.
lol. that’s funny. we had this russian teacher (from russia) back in … uh … must’ve been around 1989, i remember her wearing silk blouses.
makes me think of something else — many people on here say that they would’ve learned so much more with “a sexy / hot / whatever teacher like marina”. well, ms. tarasova was hot, indeed. young … long, blond, curly hair etc. we didn’t learn shit. well, not about russian, that is, but we learned a lot about bras and … stuff.
xbox wrote this in a previous lesson that I thought rather interesting:-
‘I found this very interesting and learned a lot. Hope you do too.
The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn’t just how you like it, think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about the 1500s:
In the Spring they;
the towns people would get their berries sprouting, sometimes to early. the Winter, as we all know in the early months of April, especially in England, are very unstable, it could all of a sudden ice out of nowhere. So, People would have to throw straw over the tops of the berries to insulate them, and keep them from spoiling from over exposure to the weather. Hence the name (Strawberries)’
Oh, and my favorite berry is the . . . cranberry!
In French, “fraise” (strawberry) is a slang term that refers to one’s face. Example: “J’aime pas sa fraise !”
On a highly related issue, when I was a kid, we used to have lunch on a nice marble slab in Barry Cemetery. Just off 69 Hwy north of the river in what used to be a one-horse town named Barry, but is now a part of Kansas City, Missouri. We enjoyed spending time with the silent majority.
Last April, I visited the town of Strawberry, Arizona. The state’s first schoolhouse is located there. I guess the kids who attendd school there grew up to be smart. Berry smart.
strawberry are great with cream and a beautiful woman like you…
Soy = 1679, saio “sauce for fish, made from soybeans,” from Du. soya, from Japanese soyu, variant of shoyu “soy,” from Chinese shi-yu, from shi “fermented soy beans” + yu “oil.” Etymology reflects Dutch presence in Japan long before English merchants began to trade there.
How about we do the definition of “give them the raspberry” LOL
Strawberries for me. Gosh Marina, your lucky to be living in L.A where its sunny and happy every day of the week.
God I hate fog.
My Favorite Berry is….. Marion Berry. Or maybe it’s Chuck Berry…..of course there is always Barry Williams (brady bunch). Then I am quite fond of the New York Razz Berry.
MARINA-strawberries are good.what about mayberry ?
милашка et al.,
Which berries? Depends on the purpose

For dessert: strawberries & raspberries
For cereal: blueberries.
For drinks: cranberries (for vodka), cherries (for other liquors)
I gotta go with strawberries, if only because it’s fun watching Marina eat them

ANyway, I would like to request a video on the word ghoul
My favorite berry is the tomato. My second favorite is the sea buckthorn and my third favorite is the barberry. And, yes, Bob is right: the banana is a true berry. I took a botany course in college.
hot for words! please solve my poker card game mystery and why poker called poker? your not poking anybody, its a card game!
pretty please help me put my mind to rest on this one, thank!
Shawn ooo
Guys,
Don’t miss Marinas appearance on the Bill O’reilly Show on the 31th.
Here is his email address, yip it up. oreilly@foxnews.com.
Marina,
Did Bill ask for any special word ie, Hypocrite, Tartuffe or Pharisee. Just kidding, I like Bill.
I like his tantrums when someone disagrees with Him.
He’s a little supercilious but ……….?
Why are Fingers called phylanes instead of just fingers
The bones of the fingers are called the phalanges.
Oh!
I know what I wanted to ask you Marina, I want my videos to say watch in high quality (like yours do.. ) How do you make them do that.. What camera do you have? James
xx
I tought you needed a bitrate of at least 600kbps and uploud the vid in xvid or divx, not sure. Do a search on it, “how to get high quality on youtube” on yt im sure you’ll find the answer.
Just hope marina replies.. I wanna know what type of camera it is etc. I think if you just have the right camera it will do it anyway
James, make sure you upload your videos with a size of 640×480 and I use H.264 encoding at a 3000 kbps encoding rate… My older videos where I uploaded them at 320×240 I don’t think they do a high quality version of them.
How did you get so smart with computer technology?
Experience Capman… I’ve been doing this for over a year now
How do you do a 3000kbp rate?
I can do everything else.. Just not the 3000kbps bit..
When you compress your videos… where do you tell it the bit rate? it would be 3 Mbps or 3000 kbps.. I don’t think that rate is that important though as long as it’s 600 kbps I think minimum
Somtimes I just upload them straight from movie maker.. I just tried to convert a video like you said and now its saying windows explorer has stopped working and rundll32 doesnt work.. Its getting better now. But when it fixes itself… I will try again… Thanks
Any more Ideas on the putting of different colored squares around our comments? If you do may I have a red one
Don’t Fence Me In
Well, now that I got that excitement out of the way, I like cherries, strawberries, blackberries, and sometimes raspberries. Especially as preserve spread or syrup.
I also read somewhere that the strawberry was a member of the rose family.
Ha
http://www.math.metu.edu.tr/~dpierce/photos/from_o thers/jerry-mj.jpg
Good one James.

Another installment of James eating without a fork.. added to his page:
http://www.hotforwords.com/2008/07/10/eating-with- no-fork/
Thanks Marina
X
what does destiny mean? i’ve always wanted to know x
Hey could you talk about the word wedgie
strawberry cheesecake.. Handsfree
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syNMLKR8nP0
I hate cheesecake. I can’t stand cheesecake
and again …
I’m beginning to see that his utterances are a strategy to attract a girlfriend

He’ll have to grow some hair first, though.
huh? hair? what?
Thanks 4 that one bob.. Lets hope he noticed I am in fact, male.
i did.
maybe i’m gay?
Maybe you’re not.. And even if you are.. I am too young for you
You’re skating on thin ice, James.
I thought older Gays were into young boys.
Keep your back to the wall.
Home alone.
See what I mean? 
Really aLx, MAYBE?
why you asking, rrr? wanna date me?
I hear the makings of a slumber party.
Capman,
She is the Brightest Youtube Star in the Sky.
Remember Russia is where a lot of the true intellect in the world came from.
The Continent in which Russia lies. True to form Marina is proof. At 21-ish,
Don’t let that sweet looking demeanor deceive you. Inside Her beats the heart of an Catherine the Great.
Shit…………………………………………………………………
| |
| o | <<—- DOOR ………….. RUN(rnch)
Good morning,
The word I would like to know more about is :Schaduenfreude.
Thanks
Larry
SCHADEN FREUDE is German : SCHADEN = DESTRUCTION + FREUDE = JOY.
The joy of destroying things like in APOCALYPSE NOW for instance.
i beg to differ.
it’s more like the pleasure or joy you feel when something bad happened to someone else.
where did the term foo fighters come from?
Hi Marina, can you please explain etymology of expression
“catch 22″. Heard it has something to do with some stupid army rule but i’m not shure. Would you investigate?
Spasibo
Thanks mrglv for requesting that word. I too requested in an earlier post. Hope she picks our expression “Catch 22″.
Funny bluetooth video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtKxrYp0pC0
How are they drive their cars?
Driving hands free before Bluetooth.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb2D8wX1fa8
ha good one marina
Martin Cashman, OMG! I think I broke my gut.
That was just hilarious! I love Mr. Bean original sketches.
Hi Marina!
I was reading PerezHilton today and it said something about Miley Cyrus’ new record. And I though: Which record did she break? But then I realized he meant record as in CD. How come the two are the same? Could you explain why?
Hi Marina,
I didn’t miss even one lesson but I would like it better to watch directly from your website.
Somehow I can’t watch your lessons anymore from this site but only from youtube. Any idea what might be causing this?
As a amitious student
Thanks and keep up the good work!
Wouter from the Netherlands
wouter, can you go to this page and tell me which versions you CAN play and which you CAN’T?
http://www.hotforwords.com/video-test-page/
Hi Marina,
Only the upper 2 worked wel, the 2 below didn’t, the lower video’s appear to get hung up at the begining and don’t continue.
Wouter
Do the videos play for you now? There was some code missing and I found the problem and fixed it.
Let me know.
Thanks!
Marina
Hi Marina,
and I promise to keep on doing my best with the lessons in the future 
All work for me now, thanks for fixing the issue!
I wish my dear teacher a nice weekend
Wouter
I would like to know what was the first word to come into the English language from Sanskrit, Hindi, or the other languages of India.
Hello, everyone. I didn’t know that foreign people call that kanji ‘tycoon’. That’s interesting, because no Japanese people read it that way. We say ‘Okimi’ when reading it. Are there any other Japanese people on this site and how do you read ‘大君’ if there are?
It’s because Japanese People use the Chinese keys as hieroglyphs :
In Chinese 大君 is read as DAI JUN “high lord”.
In Japanese you use the Chinese 大 but pronounce it in Japanese word おお =OO = “great” + 君 = きみ = KIMI “lord” so OO + KIMI = OOKIMI.
In fact Japanese uses Chinese like English or French uses Greek for making scholastical words.
Example : MEGALOS KURIOS “great lord” could become MEGALOKYRE in English or in French. It’s only a question of civilization.
I think dictionaricdotcom is right, and that Tycoon was only a loan word from Chinese, when westerners borrowed it from Japanese.
It’s amusing to try using the various on-line translators to see how they translate 大君.
Chinese to English –> Father (in Yahoo Babelfish)
In another it gives Maharaja.
For Japanese to English, Babelfish gives “Large you”
OK, maybe they are trying to emulate the British predilection for understatement.
However one can see the connections; Ty or Tai in Chinese can mean Great or Supreme as in Typhoon (Supreme Wind).
In Thai, Indonesian and some Indian languages Maha also means Great or Supreme as in Maharaja (Great Prince or King in Indian and Indonesian) and Phra Maha Nakhon (Honourable Great City or Capital City in Thai) (As an aside, Raja not only means Prince or King in Indonesian but also Great, so Maharaja is literally Great Great One.)
I believe 君 in Chinese can mean Mister; I don’t know how the Chinese pronounce it, but Khun is also used for You and Mister in Thai.
Is there a word in Japanese, that sounds like Khun or Coon and if so, what does it mean?
Hi M, could you help us out here please? When catching up with an old freind of mine, he claims he has noble ansestory dateing back
ages. A Baron. According to my dictionary, Baron, is the lowest order of British Nobility however, it also relates to a double Sirloin! A Baron of Beef! Is this where ‘Sir’-loin comes from in some way or why whould a knight be named after a cows loins? Could HFW’s please investigate? Thank you once again
Strawberries and Cream, it’s the only way to be……….
Have always grown Stawberries with a bed of straw then chase after a cow to get the cream
We put straw around the plants for two reasons: 1.) it helps retain soil moisture because the straw is light-reflective to protect it from the heat of the noonday sun while slowing the evaporative effects of wind over bare soil, and 2.) the straw provides a soft, clean mattress for the actual berries so they are less likely to sit directly in the dirt (or mud, which results from daily watering) as well as protecting them from contact with ground-dwelling insects, molds, fungus, etc.
I saw this in a previous post by xbox and thought of you pennsyltucky9. Quite interesting
‘I found this very interesting and learned a lot. Hope you do too.
The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn’t just how you like it, think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about the 1500s:
In the Spring they;
the towns people would get their berries sprouting, sometimes to early. the Winter, as we all know in the early months of April, especially in England, are very unstable, it could all of a sudden ice out of nowhere. So, People would have to throw straw over the tops of the berries to insulate them, and keep them from spoiling from over exposure to the weather. Hence the name (Strawberries)’
darn it , i wanted to ask strawberry but tought it was because of the straw they lay on the ground .
Favorite berry ….blueberry’s!!!! In Finland we have loads of them in the woods, I love picking them. Comming home with a few gallons of blueberrys
awsome!!, they’re even better with some sugar and milk.
My favorite is a mixture of sliced cantalope, with strawberries ( also sliced ), and blueberries ( not sliced ) mixed in.
Someone else mentioned boysenberries; try some boysenberry syrup on peanutbutter waffles!
A WORD REQUEST

WIDOW!! which means that you were married but your husband died days,weeks,months,years after you were married but i still don’tget why they called the womens husbands widowed!!
My word requests:
gay meaning homosexual
one night stand
http://www.hotforwords.com/index.php?s=gay
Cool. I’ll have to check it out!
nice
Dear Marina, can You explain what mean (or how explanation is about) Rendl, respectively Randall or Rondel? Have they any shackled-origin?
I came from Czech Republic.
Drahá Marino. Můžeš mi, prosím Tě, vysvětlit, odkud pochází slovo Rendl, respektive Randall nebo jinak Rondel? Souvisejí tato slova mezi sebou nějakým způsobem?
I have no proof but I feel that my explanation is the correct one :
RENDL Czech = RONDEL Polish = RUNDEL Deutsch “etwas round” = “something round”.
In French RONDELLE = SLICE.
The Germanic ROUND/RUND is taken from the Latin ROTUNDUS “having the shape of a wheel”. ROTA = WHEEL.
Blueberries for sure! Yum.
Hello Marina
I was wondering where the phrase “to hell in a handbasket” originated from. You don’t hear it now as much as you used to, so it makes you wonder even more when you do
Privet Marina,
Ya gavado parusky neochen harasaho.
Maybe you will have a section of your website to teach Americans to speak Russian?
Hi, for a word request; I’d like to know where the word ‘bonfire’ comes from. I’ve seen it in quite some American movies and series; but where does it originate from?
Cheers!
HAHAHA some one posted on marinas youtube channel
ha
that guy is posting 24/7 about his islam thingy -.- it’s redicoulus, I see his comments everywhere
grr
So is some lady and it turns out to be a porno site.
Hi James,
There’s a reason I don’t read YT comments. This is a prime example.
Why did you decide to bring this person’s lack of good judgment to our attention in our word etymology forum? It gives even more exposure to that which deserves none in the first place. In my opinion, there’s no sense in even reading YT comments, so do me a favor and try not to drag them in here for all to smell. Let’s transcend (read: ignore) off-subject chatter, especially about topics that are normally considered taboo for dinner-table conversation (like politics and religion). Nobody is likely to agree with anyone else on such personal-choice issues anyway. The mere mention of these subjects only ignite long and fruitless flame wars which waste a lot of time, generate enemies, and accomplish nothing. Thanks in advance for understanding.
Perhaps you misunderstood me PT9, I only wrote it because it was funny like saying “buy double glazing and get a can of baked beans” It was just some humour
Well done eating strawberries with your hands.. !
I like strawberries
and halle berry
and Chuck Berry
huckleberry fin.
Berry White ?
yogi ber…rry
robertmagee92 has a good request what is heads or tails
WORD REQUEST !!! what does it mean when some one tells you to stop pestering people or with some things
straw is placed under the berries to keep them high and dry from rotting on the wet ground after a rain and also to prevent to many bugs from ruining the crop
where does the expression, pop the cherry come from
a cherry’s got red juice in it? hehe.
Cherry Pop
Hi hotforwords, nice video as always..i was wondering where the term “Heads & tails” comes from. I can understand the head part but the tails is bugging me. Can you investigate?
Thanks xx
My favorite berry is boysenberry.
The strawberries from my garden are nice and ripe right now. As for a favorite, I have to go with wild blueberries and huckleberries, although blackberries and raspberries are definitely right in there as well.
There’s also a close relative of the blackberry that grows on a thorny vine which trails very low across the ground and is commonly called a dewberry around the area where I grew up. These look just like blackberries and can sometimes grow to twice the size of the largest blackberries. They are much sweeter than a blackberry when fully ripe. Dewberries are best in the early morning when the ground is still cold and wet with heavy dew, hence the name. They also deserve a place of honor among my favorite berries. Yum!
also is cherry my favorite a berry even if it does not have berry in the name
marina i would like you to tell us the history of the coco bean and how it became sweet and traveled the world PLEASE

Straw in strawberries? I don’t think there is a straw in that fruit. Anyway, I like strawberries dipped in chocolate. Every year at any x-mas party I attend to they have a chocolate fountain to dip the strawberries in. I think anybody should try it. it’s good!
Blueberries seem to keep fresh longer than other berries… they are awesome with grainy cereals. It’s a close call with strawberries, but I’d have to go with the blue for my favorite.
Oh, and I forgot to say please! …So, please!
much love!
Heyyyy…
I was leaning back in my chair yesterday with some friends, and we began to discuss the meaning of ‘reclining.’ There is also the word incline… sooo… can you investigate?
RECLINING
much love!
I just wanted to know if you could give us the origin of the word ‘kindergarten’. I believe ‘kinder’ is German for children. But where does ‘garten’ come from?
German GARTEN = English GARDEN. English and German are two germanic languages like Dutch, Danish, Norvegian, Swedish and Icelandic. Sometimes all these languages use the same or almost the same words. But sometimes you have surprises : GIFT means POISON in German
and KIND means CHILD.
I forgot to say : ERDE = EARTH + BEERE = BERRY.
ERDBEERE “earthberry” = STRAWBERRY.
STROH = STRAW
That explains why the name of Strawberries in Sweden are Jordgubbar, that trans lated are EarthMen…. kinda weird name really.
So today at work a co worker of mine said he had to go to a Funeral, and he said why is the word fun in funeral, so i thought i would turn to my trustie Hotforwords, to see why does the word funeral have the word fun in it? But you havent done the word yet
so then i must request the word Funeral
and how about the “Wake” after the funeral? The wake is more fun than the funeral.
yeah, an anagram to “funeral” is “real fun”. i noticed that when watching “death at a funeral”. great movie, btw.
I ate a dingleberry when I was a small child. I haven’t eaten another berry since.
HaHa who fooled you
Hi Marina,
As a retired journalist, I, too, love words, but more specifically idiomatic expressions. What about this one?
“catch as catch can”
Both my mom and grandmother used this to mean “you’re on your own.” When my kids were growing up we shortened it to just “catch” which meant everybody had to get their own dinner because nothing special had been prepared. For example:
“hey Dad, what’s for supper?” “I don’t know, you’ll have to catch.”
So where did “catch as catch can” come from?
Oh, by the way, I’m partial to Marionberries!
Fresh berries when there in season and frozen berries when there not………
Fresh berries when there in season and frozen berries when there not………
coy might be an interesting word. Guff first though
All of them.
Hm Acai berries perhaps… hmm… blackberries i think.
My favorite berry is probably blueberries.
I would have to say boysenberries.
Марина, the клубника is not a true berry, neither is the черница. My favorites are the малина and ежевика (which are almost the same, and are not true berries, either!)
not true berries then what are they
малина <— Looks like marina to me.
hello marina the most common word in the world is OK how about the word ouch
its got to be number two
Only in English. I’m pretty sure the Italian, French and Spanish-speakers all use “ai” instead of ow or ouch when in sudden pain. Not sure about other languages though. And there are quite a lot of other languages out there.
Hello,
In France, we use to say “Aïe!” or “Ouille!” for sudden pain.

Especially it is used when you’re a child, ’cause when you’re a grown up, you tend to say cuss words.
But that is another story
Do you know the origin of the word phrase “Xfold” like to “increase seven-fold” or “ten-fold”?
Is it just me, or has there been a disturbingly sharp decline in cleavage the last few weeks? Does it have anything to do with the Youtube partner program, I wonder? Does Youtube withhold payment on videos they deem overly sexual?
I don’t know for sure, but I can’t help but notice that the tata to video ratio dove at around the same time the little red triangle started to appear on the corner of her videos. I hope this isn’t the case, but I can’t think of any other reasons for why Marina seemed so happy to oblige the hooter-lovin’ masses by displaying her masses one minute, then suddenly shelve the flesh-shelves the next.
I miss the boobs
They’re still there - just use your imagination.
Could you tell us the origin of the word “Intelligent”?
Marina!!! ur videos are great!!!
plz makea video about “right” and “left”
How did the word silk blouse come about. please send an email of you wearing a silk blouse
hugs and kisses to the teacher.
lol. that’s funny. we had this russian teacher (from russia) back in … uh … must’ve been around 1989, i remember her wearing silk blouses.
makes me think of something else — many people on here say that they would’ve learned so much more with “a sexy / hot / whatever teacher like marina”. well, ms. tarasova was hot, indeed. young … long, blond, curly hair etc. we didn’t learn shit. well, not about russian, that is, but we learned a lot about bras and … stuff.