You're listening to a way with words the show about language and how we use it. I'm Grant Barrett and I'm Martha Barnett

Ian Gordon who lives in the UK emailed us to ask if we know the Welsh word for children. I

Don't think I do I was so excited to learn it

I didn't either but the Welsh word for children is plant

PLA and tea

How cool is that that's a coincidence, right? Yes, yes, that's a complete coincidence

The word for child is something like plenton and the plural for children in Welsh is plant and in the language world

We call those kinds of words false friends the words that look like they mean something that they really don't right

They look like they're etymological related across languages, but it's just an accident

Well, sometimes they're etymologically related, but they mean different things

for example the word

Pestidious in English means meticulous or really careful about detail

But it goes back to a Latin word Pestidium, which means loathing or disgust and that's reflected in the Spanish word

Pestidioso which actually means annoying or irritating or tedious and so if you see that word you shouldn't assume that it's a positive

word, but other times the words are just arbitrary the Italian word boudreau for example meaning butter

Sounds like the Spanish word and looks like the Spanish word for donkey, right, but they're not related at all

They're not related at all. Yeah, and it's a common etymological mistake when people begin to first explore the

How languages are connected they find all these accidental?

Oh wow these words are spelled spelled the same or they sound the same

Almost always it's just an accident. There's no real history there

They're just just because human mouths make the same sounds and those sounds combinations are just likely to happen again and again

Right, right, so if you're learning German you don't want to give someone a gift

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