It's silicon, not silicone!

[mfro]

I can't imagine that sticking your fingers in a light socket 2 seconds on/2 seconds off would be really "relaxing".

Not relaxing, but did you measure before and after?

[tooki]

That is, of course, largely nonsense, insofar as every language borrows from other languages (save perhaps for isolated languages on islands with no outside contact).

Icelandic has no borrowed words, so not every language. And you can't say that Iceland has no outside contact.

That is, of course, also untrue. Icelandic has plenty of them, despite efforts to prevent borrowing. See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_vocabulary
https://www.visindavefur.is/svar.php?id=4796
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_purism_in_Icelandic#Loanwords

[Nominal Animal]

Then there are words like kuningas.  The current understanding of the etymology is that it was borrowed from proto-Germanic kuningaz, which then linguistically evolved into cyning/king/kening/köning/könning/konung/kung etc. in languages with Germanic origin, while Finns stayed with the old form.  So, while kuningas is older than king/kung/König etc., it has the same root, and is a loan word.

No wonder so many linguists I know are utterly batty: the subject they study is an utter mess.

Which is also why I think OP is correct that the distinction between silicon and silicone is important: language is already so messy and incoherent, that it is difficult to get the message across without significant errors and mistakes.  Being lazy, and making that even harder by not bothering to use the correct words, is just evil.
We are not telepaths: we do not know what others think, we can only read or hear what they say (unless we see them face-to-face, which helps a lot).

[GlennSprigg]

WOW !!....  Putting aside boobs, wobbly dicks, and Politically Correct prudes......

I've stated somewhere before, that 'English' is generally not a unique Language, Per-Se'.
It is a mixture of 'bastardizations', 'misinterpretations', and 'pseudo-translations', from mainly
Latin, Greek, French, German & many other core languages, especially when it comes to such
technical/chemical/scientific words that 'appear' to be our language.
I was going to type 50 or so examples, but decided it would be futile. 

<linguist>
That is, of course, largely nonsense, insofar as every language borrows from other languages (save perhaps for isolated languages on islands with no outside contact). . . . .

The point I was making, (and I missed one category, being 'Anglicized' words), was mainly to do
with Technical/Scientific words, of which very little are actually English per-se'.  So 'Silicon' & 'Silicone',
although we individually think we 'know' the difference, is Anglicized from 'stock' languages.
"Bromine" is an Anglicized Greek word, "Bromos", (correct me, ok), meaning "Stinky Stuff".
The 'E' on the end of a lot of words is complex. See the following... 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_orthography
As long as we know what someone means, we'll get by...   

[tooki]

Technical jargon (in any language) tends to originate in the languages the disciplines were first described in. So psychology and mathematics are full of German words, culinary arts use tons of French words, music uses Italian words, and now, computing uses English words.

Again, it's a universal process, nothing in any way unique to English.

[schmitt trigger]

Absolutely right Tooki;

That is the reason that the word Tsunami comes from Japan, which is regularly battered by them.

Also....Technology has a way of causing acronyms to become nouns. Some of them quite common.
There are plenty of examples: Laser, Radar, Led, et al.

And some massively powerful entities may actually generate other words like; Google it! Very seldom one would say: Perform a internet-wide search to find your answer.

When prompted how one found a certain piece of information, the response is very likely "I Googled it", even though you may have used Bing or DuckDuckGo. 

[ebastler]

And some massively powerful entities may actually generate other words like; Google it! Very seldom one would say: Perform a internet-wide search to find your answer.
When prompted how one found a certain piece of information, the response is very likely "I Googled it", even though you may have used Bing or DuckDuckGo. 

Too bad AltaVista did not get known quite widely enough, that would have made for a much nicer word for "internet search". 
On the other hand I'm glad Hotbot did not get the honor of coining the term...

[GlennSprigg]

Technical jargon (in any language) tends to originate in the languages the disciplines were first described in. So psychology and mathematics are full of German words, culinary arts use tons of French words, music uses Italian words, and now, computing uses English words.
Again, it's a universal process, nothing in any way unique to English.

Absolutely correct!  (Regarding 'English'). However, I don't think (?) Germans were using French/Italian words
in their main-stream language, over the centuries, or Visa Versa... (That's Latin  ).

And....

Absolutely right Tooki;
That is the reason that the word Tsunami comes from Japan, which is regularly battered by them.
Also....Technology has a way of causing acronyms to become nouns. Some of them quite common.
There are plenty of examples: Laser, Radar, Led, et al.
And some massively powerful entities may actually generate other words like; Google it! Very seldom one would say: Perform a internet-wide search to find your answer.
When prompted how one found a certain piece of information, the response is very likely "I Googled it", even though you may have used Bing or DuckDuckGo. 

Haha... Yep. Again that's what I mean. (Like 'Tsunami' etc.).  I'm sure also, that virtually every country
would have heard of and used the word, "Laser", but in THEIR language may not know that it is an
acronym for "Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation", in English...

And yes, we now globally say... "Google it", like some might say... "Hoover the Carpets". (A brand name).
( "DuckDuckGo"... W.T.F. !!      Re: 'Google'......  I think I said here once, that...
At Google's inception years ago, in the proverbial 'shed', one asked the other... "Hey, what's the name of
that really big number with lots of zeroes ??". He was answered... "That's a 'Googol' ". . .
(A 'Googol' is 10 to the power of 100). The other guy THOUGHT he said 'Google', and that's what stuck!!!   

[mfro]

... Absolutely correct!  (Regarding 'English'). However, I don't think (?) Germans were using French/Italian words...

I can't say much about Italian (but think virtually every language borrowed 'Spaghetti' and 'Maccaroni'), but there are lots of loanwords both ways between French and German (although Germany doesn't have an official institute to save the language from foreign influence as France has).

'Biedermeier', 'Jugendstil', 'Dachshund' but also 'Blitzkrieg', 'chabraque' and 'choucroute' (Sauerkraut).

'Atelier', 'Allee', 'Groteske', 'pedantisch', 'Plattitüde' and 'Präservativ' only to name a few.

[tooki]

Technical jargon (in any language) tends to originate in the languages the disciplines were first described in. So psychology and mathematics are full of German words, culinary arts use tons of French words, music uses Italian words, and now, computing uses English words.
Again, it's a universal process, nothing in any way unique to English.

Absolutely correct!  (Regarding 'English'). However, I don't think (?) Germans were using French/Italian words
in their main-stream language, over the centuries, or Visa Versa... (That's Latin  ).

You'd be absolutely wrong in thinking that. All of those languages include words borrowed from each other at all periods in time.

English isn't nearly as "special" as people think it is. IMHO, where English really is unique is the sounds it uses; English uses tons and tons of sounds that are comparatively rare in world languages, while almost entirely avoiding the vowel sounds that are the most common worldwide.

[GlennSprigg]

Technical jargon (in any language) tends to originate in the languages the disciplines were first described in. So psychology and mathematics are full of German words, culinary arts use tons of French words, music uses Italian words, and now, computing uses English words.
Again, it's a universal process, nothing in any way unique to English.

Absolutely correct!  (Regarding 'English'). However, I don't think (?) Germans were using French/Italian words
in their main-stream language, over the centuries, or Visa Versa... (That's Latin  ).

You'd be absolutely wrong in thinking that. All of those languages include words borrowed from each other at all periods in time.

English isn't nearly as "special" as people think it is. IMHO, where English really is unique is the sounds it uses; English uses tons and tons of sounds that are comparatively rare in world languages, while almost entirely avoiding the vowel sounds that are the most common worldwide.

Ok mate. I don't think English is 'Special' as such, but what I mean is that it is not a 'root' language.
(Like Latin/Greek/German/french). Of course any language can/does have roots to other languages, I
simply believe that 'English' is MUCH MORE so derived from others, and is much 'newer'...
Yes, in English, we don't have the same emphasis on certain VOWELS etc, like the German 'Umlaut',
where vowels like a, e, o etc have 2 dots above them, or French vowels with a 'dash' above, which
obviously change the pronunciation etc. However, that is not what I am saying.
P.S.  Some countries/areas abhor certain 'vowels'. In Wales, they use 'Conwy', not 'Conway' etc etc..

[Yansi]

Indeed.

Anyway, I agree with the annoying misuse of silicon/e.

That said and to be fair, in all the other languages I know (admittedly just a few, but hey), those two words are significantly different, so the fuck-up doesn't happen (unless it comes from less-educated people influenced by the english "silicon" word... for instance well known by almost everyone in the world as in "silicon valley" )

Eg:

For silicon:
French: Silicium
German: Silizium
Italian: Silicio

For silicone:
French: Silicone
German: Silikone
Italian: Siliconi

English: 0

At least we have křemík and silikon. 

[tooki]

Ok mate. I don't think English is 'Special' as such, but what I mean is that it is not a 'root' language. (Like Latin/Greek/German/french).

Latin and Greek did have special status as scholarly languages, but they had surprisingly little impact on everyday speech. (E.g. everyday Latin evolved into Italian.) Don't be surprised if English is viewed similarly in the future, since it's the overwhelming language of academia in the 20th (and so far, 21st) century, having supplanted French.

Of course any language can/does have roots to other languages, I simply believe that 'English' is MUCH MORE so derived from others, and is much 'newer'...

Which would be dead wrong. Old English is at least as old as Old German and Old French, possibly older. (Wiki states Old English as starting in the 5th century A.D., 7th century for Old German, 8th century for Old French.)

No (natural) language emerged from nowhere*. EVERY language, including Latin and Greek, evolved from earlier languages.

And I've already addressed English's addition of the Norman French vocabulary to expand, not replace, its native vocabulary.


*OK, not strictly true, insofar as we know of cases where feral children grew up without any contact whatsoever with any existing language, and so the kids automatically developed a language of their own. The human brain is, quite simply, built for language, and will generate one (or just the missing parts) if no existing language is learned.

Yes, in English, we don't have the same emphasis on certain VOWELS etc, like the German 'Umlaut',
where vowels like a, e, o etc have 2 dots above them, or French vowels with a 'dash' above, which
obviously change the pronunciation etc.

The German umlaut and the accents in French, Spanish, Italian, etc. perform fundamentally different functions. The umlaut does not have anything to do with placing emphasis. It actually changes the sound to a totally different vowel, hence its name "umlaut" which means something like "sound change". (In fact, the umlaut symbol evolved as shorthand for a superscript 'e' in blackletter script. Indeed, in modern German, when umlauts aren't available (like in foreign computer databases, or to avoid excess height in all-caps), they simply insert an e instead, e.g. the last name Müller becomes Mueller, or a NICHT ÖFFNEN sign might become NICHT OEFFNEN.)

But spelling is not what I'm talking about anyway. I'm talking about speech SOUNDS. And English is a real weirdo in that regard:

We use the comparatively rare "th" sounds, the extremely rare rhotic "r", and we allow fairly long sequences of consonants within a syllable (like the -k-s-th-s sequence in "sixths", a single-syllable word). We do not have the "simple" a/e/i/o/u sounds most languages use -- we instead have the diphthongs "ey", "ee", "ai", "ouw", "yew". And a bunch of other vowels not used in most languages, like the 'e' sound in "met" or "let", the 'a' sound in "cat", the 'u' sounds in "put" and "putt", etc.

If you want to hear what English without diphthongs sounds like, listen to Scottish English, which notably dispenses with most of them.

However, that is not what I am saying.

So what are you saying, other than repeating your very mistaken belief that English is a young language cobbled together from others, which is simply not supported by any kind of linguistic evidence?

As I've said multiple times, the only thing where English is a bit unique (at least among European languages) is how we adopted nearly the entire Norman French vocabulary to expand (not replace!!) our original Germanic one.

P.S.  Some countries/areas abhor certain 'vowels'. In Wales, they use 'Conwy', not 'Conway' etc etc..

Ummm... so you're recognizing the existence of accents and dialects?

[Mr. Scram]

The clusterfest most languages are can only be made worse when laymen try to be linguists. It’s complicated material as it encompasses hacks and shortcuts and needless extensions and flourishes which seem to serve no other purpose than to torture people who study them. Thare a lot of “false friends” where not knowing your stuff will lead to very sensible but utterly wrong conclusions.

[tooki]

Indeed. I studied linguistics as my minor at university*, so while I’m certainly not a true expert, I do know a great deal more than laypersons. It’s often irritating how laypersons have such strong beliefs about language, usually while knowing little to nothing about how language actually works...



*I was only a few classes away from a double major in linguistics (together with my information systems major), but some were offered so infrequently (only once every 2 years) that it would have delayed graduation by a year and a half, so I just kept it as my minor.

[GlennSprigg]

Tooki . . .  You sound very knowledgeable on the subject, and I truly commend you.
However, (mainly to someone else...), I never claimed to be an expert linguist,  by any stretch.
You did, though, misinterpret what I was basically saying, regarding a few points.
Firstly, when I used the word 'emphasis', I should have said English does not place 'importance'
on the vowels, (with dots/marks etc above them as others do), meaning that we don't do it. NOT
that it changes the vowels 'emphasis'. I know that they can totally change the 'sound' of them.

I was also mainly talking about modern English. Obviously 'old' English was a different beast, when
 areas of Scotland, England & Ireland had Celtic influences, intermixed with Gaelic. (Still today).
I'm not saying that English is a young language, nor that all languages didn't once intersperse.

All I ever tried to say is that within our 'modern' English, (and especially in scientific circles), a vast
amount of 'our' words have Latin/Greek/French etc origins!! Though 'anglicized' versions of them too.
I was not trying to start a war of words, nor to correct anyone else.  Peace my friend.   

[tooki]

Tooki . . .  You sound very knowledgeable on the subject, and I truly commend you.
However, (mainly to someone else...), I never claimed to be an expert linguist,  by any stretch.
You did, though, misinterpret what I was basically saying, regarding a few points.
Firstly, when I used the word 'emphasis', I should have said English does not place 'importance'
on the vowels, (with dots/marks etc above them as others do), meaning that we don't do it. NOT
that it changes the vowels 'emphasis'. I know that they can totally change the 'sound' of them.

But that’s just spelling convention, which exists independent of the actual rules of the language itself. (As in, human languages — except for dead languages —  are spoken first, written second, if at al.) The rules of English grammar, pronunciation, semantics, etc.  apply equally to an illiterate speaker as they do to a literate one.

So if we are talking about speech sounds, then English is every bit as picky as any other language. For example, the following words differ only in the specific vowel sound they use: put, putt, pit, pet, Pete, pot, pat, and probably a few more I can’t think of at the moment.

I was also mainly talking about modern English. Obviously 'old' English was a different beast, when
 areas of Scotland, England & Ireland had Celtic influences, intermixed with Gaelic. (Still today).
I'm not saying that English is a young language, nor that all languages didn't once intersperse.

But I really don’t think that it’s any different if we restrict it to modern English.

All I ever tried to say is that within our 'modern' English, (and especially in scientific circles), a vast
amount of 'our' words have Latin/Greek/French etc origins!! Though 'anglicized' versions of them too.
I was not trying to start a war of words, nor to correct anyone else.  Peace my friend.   

I think you underestimate the extent to which all the other European languages also borrowed from those languages and each other!

What I do find amusing is how in German, a lot of Greek and Latin scientific terminology is referred to as the “Fremdwort” (foreign word), while in English we simply consider it a normal word. For example, the word “adult” is normal English, but considered biology jargon in German. (The everyday word is “Erwachsen”, which literally just means “grown-up”, which is also a word we have in English.) :p

And I definitely am not intending to fight with you or try to put you down. Sorry if I gave that impression. It’s just that this is a great example of how non-linguists’ beliefs about languages and language development are, well, often completely wrong.

[GlennSprigg]

Tooki...  I grasp all that you are saying. I just didn't expect that you were going to/needed to,
break down everything I say into almost line by line discussions, as you are still reading WAY
too deep into what I thought was a reasonable summation, in my last, final, paragraph ??

I'm not doubting that ALL languages 'evolve', and can go back as far as one may wish to research.
I 'initially' quoted an Anglicized version of the Greek word, 'Bromos', today being 'Bromine'. All that
I was 'suggesting' is that I don't think the 'Greeks' adopted that word from another prior language,
as it was invented by the Greeks, and was descriptive of the Element. The 'English' word ensued...

As you would know, (seriously), old German, and in fact still today, also is very 'descriptive' in their
naming of things back through time. For example... 'Mercury' (English). In German, even today, it is
called 'Quecksilber', which translates to 'Quick Silver'... Because it is Silver coloured, ('colored'), and
seems to move quickly on a table or what ever, if touched. Their 'descriptions' become 'words'.
A 'Quecksilberschalter' translates to a 'Mercury (tilt) Switch'. Combined to make a 'word'.
OLD languages were very 'descriptive'. but it is still not what I simply said...    Again, PEACE mate.. 

Now PLEASE see the following as JUST IN FUN !!!........
(Especially as we are discussing various countries languages & interpretations)....
I did a generic 'Google' search for 'Tooki', and the 1st one came up under 'urbandictionary.com' as....
      Tooki-Tooki
      To stick your tongue up a tall, wanna be emo girl's butt hole, while she proceeds to fart on your tongue.

So let's just put life down to a series of misinterpretations !!!   

[tooki]

Tooki...  I grasp all that you are saying. I just didn't expect that you were going to/needed to,
break down everything I say into almost line by line discussions, as you are still reading WAY
too deep into what I thought was a reasonable summation, in my last, final, paragraph ??

If you mean this one:

All I ever tried to say is that within our 'modern' English, (and especially in scientific circles), a vast
amount of 'our' words have Latin/Greek/French etc origins!! Though 'anglicized' versions of them too.

then yes, that statement is correct.

But your original statement was the following, which is worlds apart from the one above:

I've stated somewhere before, that 'English' is generally not a unique Language, Per-Se'.
It is a mixture of 'bastardizations', 'misinterpretations', and 'pseudo-translations', from mainly
Latin, Greek, French, German & many other core languages, especially when it comes to such
technical/chemical/scientific words that 'appear' to be our language.
I was going to type 50 or so examples, but decided it would be futile. 

I'm not doubting that ALL languages 'evolve', and can go back as far as one may wish to research.
I 'initially' quoted an Anglicized version of the Greek word, 'Bromos', today being 'Bromine'. All that
I was 'suggesting' is that I don't think the 'Greeks' adopted that word from another prior language,
as it was invented by the Greeks, and was descriptive of the Element. The 'English' word ensued...

Well, yes, they called it "bromos" for "stench", but where did their word for "stench" come from? It either evolved from a predecessor language, or it was borrowed from some other contemporary language. (You can do this recursively almost ad infinitum, until we reach pre-history.)

It's comparatively rare for words to truly be invented out of thin air.

As you would know, (seriously), old German, and in fact still today, also is very 'descriptive' in their
naming of things back through time. For example... 'Mercury' (English). In German, even today, it is
called 'Quecksilber', which translates to 'Quick Silver'... Because it is Silver coloured, ('colored'), and
seems to move quickly on a table or what ever, if touched. Their 'descriptions' become 'words'.
A 'Quecksilberschalter' translates to a 'Mercury (tilt) Switch'. Combined to make a 'word'.
OLD languages were very 'descriptive'.

Not just old ones! Modern words often emerge similarly. For example, the word "newspaper" (which in some dialects of English is already pronounced "noosepaper", not "noozpaper", showing it really becoming a standalone noun, not a compound) originally was just a compound "news-paper", as in, a paper with news on it. "Email" went a similar path, originally always written e-mail, but increasingly written without the hyphen. And to be sure, the English words "email" and "mail" have been adopted into tons of other languages to mean email specifically. (I do love the Canadian French word "courriel" for email.)

But you're right that in English, we don't perceive our Latin/Greek-rooted words as being descriptive like that, since we don't generally know Latin or Greek, so we kinda use them as monolithic blocks. But if we did know Latin or Greek, we'd see that those words/roots are just as descriptive in those languages!


Many native German words for things crack me up. The word for "nipple" is pretty well known: Brustwarze, which literally translates to "breast wart". Less known is their (everyday) word for the areola: Vorhof, which literally means "vestibule". 

(If you look at English anatomy jargon, though, we use the word "vestibule" for a few structures, too! "Areola" means nothing more than "little space" in Latin, apparently.)

Here's a great video of a German tongue-twister that makes fun of how their nouns can compound endlessly:

Now PLEASE see the following as JUST IN FUN !!!........
(Especially as we are discussing various countries languages & interpretations)....
I did a generic 'Google' search for 'Tooki', and the 1st one came up under 'urbandictionary.com' as....
      Tooki-Tooki
      To stick your tongue up a tall, wanna be emo girl's butt hole, while she proceeds to fart on your tongue.

OMG that's hilarious! 

Also, something I definitely will not be trying out!

So let's just put life down to a series of misinterpretations !!!   

That's so very true!!

[Illusionist]

Never did I imagine, when I vented my spleen about silicone and silicon, that the ensuing thread would prove so entertaining and educational.

Tooki-tooki... there's phrase I'm sure I'll never need to use again; hopefully!

 

[GlennSprigg]

Never did I imagine, when I vented my spleen about silicone and silicon, that the ensuing thread would prove so entertaining and educational.

Tooki-tooki... there's phrase I'm sure I'll never need to use again; hopefully!

 

Ain't life interesting 'Illusionist' 
And finally (haha!) to 'Tooki'......
Firstly, I'm glad you saw/took the humor as it was intended ! 
However, I can't help myself from mentioning a few minor corrections...   
You said....
"Well, yes, they called it "bromos" for "stench", but where did their word for "stench" come from? "
Come on!!, everyone knows what I meant, and it was not that!
You said....
"It's comparatively rare for words to truly be invented out of thin air."
Whether it was a 'grunt' from a caveman, ALL words must ORIGINALLY been 'made' up. Here in Australia,
we have in Central Australia,  we have the Olgas, & Ayers Rock. The Olgas, in Aboriginal language, is called
"Kata Tjuta" which means "Many Heads". However, Ayers Rock is called "Uluru". Which is a totally made up
name with no descriptive origins. There are countless others here too ! 
"Brustwarze", which literally translates to "breast wart"...... ? True.  Descriptive, but not 'sexy' xox
Regarding your German tongue twister video, don't get me started on the fun I used to have with my old
German mate & his wife!!, regarding some of the idiosyncrasies in English!!  They were taught in Germany
to order breakfast here, by asking for "M, N, X". (Ham & Eggs!). And finally taught them the "I before E,
except after C" rule in English.  (Receipt, as opposed to believe, fierce). Germans generally use 'ei', as
in Stein. (Stone).

But wait!!, I want to throw this to you!!!... do you realize that in English Grammar, there is a sentence in
which you can use the word "that", 5 times in succession, (like... 'that that that that that') which still
makes grammatical sense  !!!!!  See if you can figure it out !!   
(Yes, I'll later explain it !! )

[tooki]

However, I can't help myself from mentioning a few minor corrections...   
You said....
"Well, yes, they called it "bromos" for "stench", but where did their word for "stench" come from? "
Come on!!, everyone knows what I meant, and it was not that!
You said....
"It's comparatively rare for words to truly be invented out of thin air."
Whether it was a 'grunt' from a caveman, ALL words must ORIGINALLY been 'made' up.

Weeeellll... sorta. What I mean is that it's rare for us to need a word for something new and just randomly chain together sounds; we tend to either borrow an existing word from somewhere else, or create a descriptive new compound. (Brand names excepted, of course.)

Here in Australia,
we have in Central Australia,  we have the Olgas, & Ayers Rock. The Olgas, in Aboriginal language, is called
"Kata Tjuta" which means "Many Heads". However, Ayers Rock is called "Uluru". Which is a totally made up
name with no descriptive origins. There are countless others here too ! 

Place names often (possibly most often?) have descriptive origins. What happens a lot is that the name becomes kind of "static" as the language evolves around it, making it non-obvious that it is a descriptive name. For example, the English place name suffix "-ington" means "town of the people of [something]", e.g. Washington means "town of the Wash people". (-ton means town, -ing means the people of.) But nobody knows that any more, so we just see them as place names, and as the surname of people with an ancestor originally from there. So "Uluru" likely was descriptive, but in some long lost ancestral language.

Regarding your German tongue twister video, don't get me started on the fun I used to have with my old
German mate & his wife!!, regarding some of the idiosyncrasies in English!!  They were taught in Germany
to order breakfast here, by asking for "M, N, X". (Ham & Eggs!).

  Wooow...

And finally taught them the "I before E,
except after C" rule in English.  (Receipt, as opposed to believe, fierce). Germans generally use 'ei', as
in Stein. (Stone).

German has both, each simply encodes different sounds:
ei is pronounced like the English "aye", as in Stein (and more rarely, "uhy", like the first "i" in "crisis", as in Meissel [chisel])
ie is pronounced like the English "ee", as in Kiesel (old word for silicon)

When I was just beginning to learn German, the handy shortcut I remembered is that each of those pairs is pronounced like the English name of the second letter. So "ei" = "I" and "ie" = "E".

But wait!!, I want to throw this to you!!!... do you realize that in English Grammar, there is a sentence in
which you can use the word "that", 5 times in succession, (like... 'that that that that that') which still
makes grammatical sense  !!!!!  See if you can figure it out !!   
(Yes, I'll later explain it !! )

Oh, you mean this? http://www.increasebrainpower.com/that-riddle.html

FYI, his analysis is wrong, or rather, his analysis is wrong for the punctuation he inserts. As he's punctuated it, the first "that" is not a conjunction, it is a pronoun. If he wants it to be a conjunction, then the first comma would be deleted.

[GlennSprigg]

However, I can't help myself from mentioning a few minor corrections...   
You said....
"Well, yes, they called it "bromos" for "stench", but where did their word for "stench" come from? "
Come on!!, everyone knows what I meant, and it was not that!
You said....
"It's comparatively rare for words to truly be invented out of thin air."
Whether it was a 'grunt' from a caveman, ALL words must ORIGINALLY been 'made' up.

Weeeellll... sorta. What I mean is that it's rare for us to need a word for something new and just randomly chain together sounds; we tend to either borrow an existing word from somewhere else, or create a descriptive new compound. (Brand names excepted, of course.)

Here in Australia,
we have in Central Australia,  we have the Olgas, & Ayers Rock. The Olgas, in Aboriginal language, is called
"Kata Tjuta" which means "Many Heads". However, Ayers Rock is called "Uluru". Which is a totally made up
name with no descriptive origins. There are countless others here too ! 

Place names often (possibly most often?) have descriptive origins. What happens a lot is that the name becomes kind of "static" as the language evolves around it, making it non-obvious that it is a descriptive name. For example, the English place name suffix "-ington" means "town of the people of [something]", e.g. Washington means "town of the Wash people". (-ton means town, -ing means the people of.) But nobody knows that any more, so we just see them as place names, and as the surname of people with an ancestor originally from there. So "Uluru" likely was descriptive, but in some long lost ancestral language.

Regarding your German tongue twister video, don't get me started on the fun I used to have with my old
German mate & his wife!!, regarding some of the idiosyncrasies in English!!  They were taught in Germany
to order breakfast here, by asking for "M, N, X". (Ham & Eggs!).

  Wooow...

And finally taught them the "I before E,
except after C" rule in English.  (Receipt, as opposed to believe, fierce). Germans generally use 'ei', as
in Stein. (Stone).

German has both, each simply encodes different sounds:
ei is pronounced like the English "aye", as in Stein (and more rarely, "uhy", like the first "i" in "crisis", as in Meissel [chisel])
ie is pronounced like the English "ee", as in Kiesel (old word for silicon)

When I was just beginning to learn German, the handy shortcut I remembered is that each of those pairs is pronounced like the English name of the second letter. So "ei" = "I" and "ie" = "E".

But wait!!, I want to throw this to you!!!... do you realize that in English Grammar, there is a sentence in
which you can use the word "that", 5 times in succession, (like... 'that that that that that') which still
makes grammatical sense  !!!!!  See if you can figure it out !!   
(Yes, I'll later explain it !! )

Oh, you mean this? http://www.increasebrainpower.com/that-riddle.html

FYI, his analysis is wrong, or rather, his analysis is wrong for the punctuation he inserts. As he's punctuated it, the first "that" is not a conjunction, it is a pronoun. If he wants it to be a conjunction, then the first comma would be deleted.

Regarding " "M, N, X". (Ham & Eggs!)"... They were being taught English correctly, but were given that 'fun'
variation too, just to sort-of pronounce it right here in AussieLand 

I was not previously aware of the reverse...  "ei" = "I" and "ie" = "E" for German.  Will remember that ! 
I think our English  "I before E, except after C", only has a few exceptions, but only when words are
taken from German names, like 'Epstein' or 'Stein'.

Regarding the  'that that that that that' conundrum, You found it!!  Funnily enough, I've never seen it
posted or written before. I figured it out myself once while pondering words. 
(And yes, punctuation is important, for readability).  Translation could pose a problem !!

IN GENERAL....  Yea, my old German friends had the hardest time in getting me to pronounce their vowels
and consonants correctly, to be understood!!  Like "U, V, W" being pronounced like "Oooh, Far, Vow".
And that "VolksWagen" being pronounced like  "Folks Vagen". (The people's car). And back to the
'descriptive' words, starting with 'Uhr' (for Clock), but a Watch is an 'Armbanduhr'. (Arm band clock).
Not to mention which words are Masculine, Feminine, & Neutral, with no fully set pattern!! (Die, Der, Das).
And that a small child has no gender!!... "Das Kind", whether they are a girl or a boy!! 
Complicated more whether you are on "Do" (Du) terms with someone. (Haben Sie, or Hast Du) 
I'm getting there....  (Sorry to the O.P. hahaha...).

[tooki]

Regarding " "M, N, X". (Ham & Eggs!)"... They were being taught English correctly, but were given that 'fun'
variation too, just to sort-of pronounce it right here in AussieLand 

Hahahaha, that detail went right over my head the first time! But yes, it's perfect!

I was not previously aware of the reverse...  "ei" = "I" and "ie" = "E" for German.  Will remember that ! 
I think our English  "I before E, except after C", only has a few exceptions, but only when words are
taken from German names, like 'Epstein' or 'Stein'.

Not really: weird, freight, feint, seize, leisure, feisty, heifer...

(And there are a handful of words with "cie", like science, species, efficient, etc.)

Regarding the  'that that that that that' conundrum, You found it!!  Funnily enough, I've never seen it
posted or written before. I figured it out myself once while pondering words. 
(And yes, punctuation is important, for readability).  Translation could pose a problem !!

Translation just makes it clear what the structure is.

For example, the:
'I said that(1)"that(2) 'that(3)' that(4) that(5) man wrote should have been underlined."'

could translate into German as:

'Ich sagte, dass(1) dieses(2) "dass(3)", das(4) dieser(5) Mann geschrieben hat, sollte unterstrichen sein.'

(Number 3 could be any of the following, since the referent is unknown: das, dass, diese, dieses, dieser, diesen)

IN GENERAL....  Yea, my old German friends had the hardest time in getting me to pronounce their vowels
and consonants correctly, to be understood!!  Like "U, V, W" being pronounced like "Oooh, Far, Vow".
And that "VolksWagen" being pronounced like  "Folks Vagen". (The people's car).

Yup. What's also funny is how native German speakers overcorrect the difference in English, pronouncing many English V's as W's instead. Like my stepdad saying "wedgetables" for vegetables (even funnier when he tries to say "veggies"!).

My mom is a retired ESL teacher, and one of the things she used to do for words that learners do this to was to refuse to show them the written word before they memorized the pronunciation, because seeing it written would forever corrupt their mental model of it! So she might say "repeat after me: vegetables". And someone would ask "how's it written?" and she would simply tell them "No! If I show you now, you will never pronounce it correctly!"  They'd practice a couple of times until everyone said it correctly, and only then expose the orthography.

Speaking of the People's Car, this reminds me of an infuriating video I encountered recently, on a youtube channel called "How to Switzerland", by a somewhat clueless American girl and her Swiss husband (like... I get what they're trying to do, but she comes off as a bit "fresh off the boat" compared to us veteran Ausländer, despite her apparently having been here for a while.) It was titled something like "10 brands the Swiss pronounce wrong" (with the word "wrong" specifically), and those "wrong" pronunciations included VW and IKEA.  (Here in Switzerland, those are pronounced "fow veh" and "ee-keh-uh", just like in Germany and Sweden, respectively.) Like... I'm pretty sure that — aside from the fact that brand names often have "local" pronunciations — if one does have to choose a single authoritative pronunciation, it's that of the company's home country!

I wonder if that girl knows that Maggi, the Swiss seasoning brand that's known worldwide, is not pronounced "maggie" in Switzerland, but "machi"!

And back to the
'descriptive' words, starting with 'Uhr' (for Clock), but a Watch is an 'Armbanduhr'. (Arm band clock).
Not to mention which words are Masculine, Feminine, & Neutral, with no fully set pattern!! (Die, Der, Das).
And that a small child has no gender!!... "Das Kind", whether they are a girl or a boy!! 
Complicated more whether you are on "Do" (Du) terms with someone. (Haben Sie, or Hast Du) 
I'm getting there....  (Sorry to the O.P. hahaha...).

Yep. Like, a woman is feminine (die Frau) but a girl is neuter (das Mädchen), because Mädchen is a diminutive, and in German, diminutives are always neuter. I remember vividly when I was learning German originally (I was 12) how all of us kid learners, regardless of what our native language was, intuitively wanted to say "die Mädchen", because obviously a girl would be feminine!

But Italian is still a smidgen weirder, in that it has a few words whose gender changes depending on the number! The only ones I know are egg and finger, which are masculine in the singular (l'uovo and il dito), but feminine in the plural (le uova and le dita)!!!     (Apparently, these are the very last traces of a neuter gender that's been almost entirely lost in Italian.)


Speaking of plurals (i.e. grammatical number), those are also a source of wonderful weirdness. For example, English and German both treat the number zero as a plural, and mark words with a plural marker ("there are zero eggs in the fridge"/"there is one egg in the fridge"/"there are two+ eggs in the fridge"). French marks plurals, but treats zero as singular. Many languages (like Japanese and Chinese) use no plural markers at all, while other languages not only have a plural, but also have special markers for the dual (specifically 2 of something, e.g. Scots Gaelic) and/or paucal (a few of something, more than 1 but less than many, like 2–4 in Russian and Polish). Some languages apparently have even more complex systems of grammatical number.

I discovered this when working at a software company, where I did the translation of everything, including program text strings, from German to English. So I had to write strings like "There were no errors while formatting the document./There was 1 error while formatting the document./There were [n] errors while formatting the document.", for each number case. Sometimes, where German (by pure chance) had singulars and plurals that were identical, I'd have to have the programmers separate a single string into separate singular and plural (like the right-click menu command "Titel bearbeiten", which in English needed to adapt to "Edit title" or "Edit titles", depending on what's selected).

And then we did a Polish translation... and the Polish translator informed us that the program logic would need to not just select the string by 0/1/2+ , but by 0/1/2–4/5+! (That's when we bought a special library to handle this, which would allow the display logic to vary by language, without needing to have the programmers change the program logic.)

[GlennSprigg]

Thanks for all that, Tooki...   All truly interesting !!
(People probably complaining... "Oh no, I thought this post/thread had stopped!!")   
You said...
    Not really: weird, freight, feint, seize, leisure, feisty, heifer...
    (And there are a handful of words with "cie", like science, species, efficient, etc.)
Ok, you looked them up! hahaha. I knew they were there, & not a hard and fast rule..   
You said...
    What's also funny is how native German speakers overcorrect the difference in English, pronouncing many English V's as W's instead.
    Like my stepdad saying "wedgetables" for vegetables (even funnier when he tries to say "veggies"!).
Yes they do !! I also noticed that in German, (I'm sure you will correct me hahaha!), they rarely if ever use
the letter 'J'. In fact the 'letter' itself is pronounced 'Yott'. They say a Jumbo-Jet is a 'Yumbo' xoxox 
You said...
    If one does have to choose a single authoritative pronunciation, it's that of the company's home country!
Exactly what I was trying to say earlier on, but not just 'company' words. Again for example why the word 'Esplanade'
here in Australia is pronounced 'Esplanaard', not pronounced like 'Esplanaid' as in 'Lemonade', because it is a French
word, so we respect their pronunciation. Confusing my German friends ! 
You said...
    Speaking of plurals (i.e. grammatical number), those are also a source of wonderful weirdness.
Regarding the 'Singular', in English, we also use the word 'a' to mean 1. Like "I have a cat". Or "What did you
see?...  'a car'. "  ( not 1 cat, or 1 car). But in German, it's 'eine Catze' and 'einen Wagen'. And of course we have
our '1 sheep, 2 sheep'. (Not 'sheeps'). All fun and games !!

The upshot of it all, is that as I've been told by friends, (and I agree!), is that to truly become more fluent, one
needs to be thrown in the deep end, & totally immersed in it over there!!, and you will have to learn!!! 

The problem I have at the moment, is understanding the voices I hear, due to normal speed of their speech.
It's like... If I said to an English/Aussie neighbor... "Whatchadointmorra", they would understand it correctly
as being  "What are you doing tomorrow". I often ask Germans to slow it down, to break up the words a bit,
and to also say things in a more formal way. (I know I have to get used to general informal speech though!).
Have a great day!!