The English Language is Still a Giant Meme

English is a difficult language. We park our cars on a driveway, but we drive cars on a Parkway. When you transport something by car, it's called a shipment, but when you transport something by ship, it's called cargo. Piano players are called pianists, but race car drivers aren't called racists. The most popular sport played in North America is football, but there is no ball, and they use their hands, not their feet. We cook bacon, but we bake cookies. We have an alphabet with 26 letters, and it's always recited in the same way, but is there any reason that the alphabet has to be in that specific order? It can get really, really confusing.

Nouns are things like literally. They're an object, like a table or a car. They're people; they're places. Verbs are words that are used to describe actions. The girl ran down the road; the guy jumped into the pool. But, alas, English comes in and just screws this entire thing up. Some words are both nouns and verbs at the same time and can be used in the same sentence. Sometimes you can create entire drawn-out sentences from a single word. The word police is an example. The police are, well, the police. Cops, you know? But police is also a verb, as in watching over or keeping in order.

So technically, "Police police police police police police police police" is a real sentence. So is "Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo." I don't know; for some reason, we call it a building, even though it's already been built. Words like that and "had" can be used back to back in sentences and still end up making sense in the end. I don't think that that makes any sense at all, but yet we still do it almost every day and barely even notice it.

Two students, James and John, were taking an English test and had been asked to describe a man who has suffered from a cold in the past. John writes, "The man had a cold," while James writes, "The man had had a cold." In the end, John's answer was marked incorrect, while James's was marked correct. So to summarize, James, while John, had had "had," had had "had" a better effect on the teacher. This is still the real sentence. It gets a lot easier to read when we add in punctuation and emphasis on some words. But still, just why? Some words are spelled the same and have multiple meanings—homonyms.

Some of these can and can't rhyme at the same time. The word "lead" rhymes with "reed," but "lead" doesn't rhyme with "red." "Red" rhymes with "lead," though. Did I just polish my car, or did I polish it using chemicals to remove the Polish? "Is pretty" fine and standard, but use chemicals to remove the Polish and you might be Hitler. Does this shampoo mean no tears or no tears? The word "bow" can mean many things, like a bow and arrow or a bow as in the bow on a Christmas gift or the bow of a ship, or you could bow in front of someone.

Some words look like they should rhyme but just don't. This is the word "bomb." Change the "B" to a "T," and now it's "Tom." I mean, tomb. Okay, let's try again. Change the first letter to a "C," and now it's "comb," which doesn't rhyme with either "bomb" or "tomb." All right, that's fine. Just change the "CU" to an "H," and we have "home." Wait, that's not how you spell it. There better, but wait! Change the "H" to an "S," and it becomes "some," which doesn't rhyme with "home."

This is why English is confusing, especially for those people who are learning English as a second language. Letters don't always make the same sounds. Phonetics is the study of the way that words and letters sound. But funny enough, the word "phonetics" isn't even spelled phonetically. "X" usually makes a sound like in the words "Apex," "relax," and "tax," but sometimes, when placed by other letters, it just causes it to make a completely different sound. "Xylophone" and "xenophobic" are two examples where the sound just completely switches to a "z."

So why don't we just use a "z" instead of "x"? "C" sometimes sounds like "K," like in "cat" and "can." But "C" also sometimes sounds like "s," like in "cigar" or "scent." Quick side note: the letter "W" is kind of weird too. In most books and fonts and web pages, it looks more like a double "v" than a double "u." But I guess it all depends on how you write it. The letters "g" and "H," and "P" and "H," when put together end up making an "F" sound. But even still, the ending "o u g h" is one of the most confusing ones in the entire language.

Take these words: "cough," "ru," "bow," "through," and "th." All of these words end in "OU," but somehow none of them rhyme with each other. But "Pony" and "baloney" do! It just doesn't make sense. You see this abomination of a word? Just take a guess on how to pronounce it. Since some of our letters make multiple sounds, and when put together with other letters sound like other letters, you can spell words in ways that they just shouldn't be. Use the "GH" sound in "tough," the "d o" sound from "women," and the "ti" sound from "nation," and you get the word "fish."

If you take the "W" and answer the "H" and "ghost" the extra "A" and "arvar," and the "T," and listen, you get the word "what." Nobody would hear it though, because all of those letters are silent! One of the dumbest things about English is how we use silent letters. Letters that otherwise make a sound sometimes decide they just don't want to show up. This is a "b"; this is also a "b." This is a very long "Q"; this is also a very long "Q." This is a blue "I"; so is this. The "s" in "island," the "p" in "psychology," the "H" in "honest," the "O" in "possum." What's even the point of silent letters? They're only good for tricking spelling bee contestants who are given words that they've literally never seen before or will ever use again.

Believe it or not, every single letter in the English alphabet is silent sometimes! Sometimes we get lazy, and we don't want to say multiple words, so instead, we use contractions. We put in an apostrophe and just completely get rid of half the letters in some words. "I am going to" has since turned into "I'Ma." It's informal, but we cut out three spaces and 75% of the letters, and yet we still all understand it. "Have not" is shortened to "haven't." "Did not" turns into "didn't." "They are" is short to "there." But we have multiple "theirs." There's "there," "there," and "there," all of which are used in their own different situations. But we'll get there later.

There's plenty of people who don't know what the difference between "your" and "your" is, but hopefully, you're not one of them. We kind of took this too far though and made triple contractions. We started slurring our words so badly that we ended up with things like "yov" and "udinov." But to be honest, sometimes these contractions don't even make much sense once you expand them. Take this question for example: why won't she come to my birthday party? When you expand the contraction, it becomes, "Why will not she come to my birthday party?" I just, I don't know.

Some words have multiple meanings, which is fine, but what isn't fine is when they're completely opposite of each other—contronyms. For example, "off." "Here, the light just got turned off," as in deactivated. But when my alarm goes off in the morning, it turns on or is activated. The word "screen" is also a contronym. You can use a hat to screen your face from the sun, as in to conceal or protect it. But movie theaters tend to screen new movies when they come out, as in to show or display.

Commas are also very important. They can be used to bridge two sentences into one or separate items in a list. But there's a gray area here as to when you should or shouldn't use them. The Oxford comma is one of the most debated things in the English language. Simply put, it's the last comma used in a sentence with three or more items. But for some reason, a lot of people choose just not to use it. Most people don't even know that they're doing anything wrong. Here's an example: "I love my parents, John and Lisa." This is a normal sentence, right? You can tell that there's at least three different people here, and there's no confusion.

Now, without the Oxford comma: "I love my parents John and Lisa." Here, it gets kind of confusing. Are your parents' names John and Lisa, or are John and Lisa other people? It just causes unnecessary confusion, even for people who are native speakers. For people learning English as a second language, it makes things a thousand times more difficult because it's so inconsistent across the world. Some places use them, other places don't.

The masculine pronouns in English are "he," "his," and "him," so you might imagine that the feminine ones are "she," "shiz," and "shim," but they aren't. Instead, we change it to "she," "hers," and "her." In English, you might notice that we often change things up just for the sake of being difficult. "Ananas, ananas, ananas, ananas." Pineapple, but pineapples have no Pine nor are they an apple. Some numbers make sense, like 60, 70, and 80. But at the same time, we have numbers that don't make sense, like 20, 30, and 40, which don't match.

We say "in November," but we say "on Friday." So yeah, it's pretty clear that English is broken. But you know, at the end of the day, it's what it is. Hey, if you like the videos we make and would want to support us to make bigger and better projects, we've recently just updated the Patreon. We have different tiers with perks like access to a private Discord server, a peek behind the curtains to hear from the team that makes these videos, discounts on all the merch we'll create in the future, and many more perks that will be decided by you guys, the patrons.

If you don't have the means, then please don't feel obligated in any way. Subscribing and watching these videos is more than enough support. But if you do have the means and want to support in some way, then this is the best way to do so. The link is in the description. Thanks for watching!

What is the most complex word in the English language? At first, you might think of something long like "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," which is among the longest words of the English language. However, long does not necessarily mean complex. By complex, we mean the most definitions. The more definitions a word has, the more scenarios it will inevitably be used in, the more complex the word becomes. "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" simply means extraordinarily good or wonderful, and that's really it.

See, there's not many situations where you would find yourself using such a word as elegant as it may seem. Okay, so "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" isn't the most complex word, but it could also be "pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis." But again, length isn't everything; that also has a simple definition. According to Oxford Dictionaries, it is an artificially long word said to mean a lung disease caused by inhaling very fine ash and sand dust.

Maybe instead of "pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis" or "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," it could be "floccinaucinihilipilification," which is a really fun word that means, according to Grammarly, the estimation of something as worthless. Ironically, it's a pretty worthless word itself and is only really used as an example of a long word. Seems fitting though, doesn't it? But how about "sesquipedalianism"? All right, maybe I'm just including this here for its definition, but it's still long, nevertheless, and it means the tendency to use long words.

But again, it isn't the most complex word. As intuitive as it may sound, the more common the word is, the more complex it becomes. That's because the more and more we use a certain word, the more connotations or implied meanings it starts to acquire. Now, none of those stupidly long words were the most complex word. So what is it? Well, officially it is "set"; unofficially, it's "run."

Yeah, those two three-letter words have the most definitions in the English language and therefore are the most complex. "Run," with 645 definitions, technically holds the title, or will in a 2037 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Currently, it's held by "set," with 430 meanings. There's literally over 220 pages needed to cover every single definition of "set." Don't believe me? Well, you can set something in a certain position. A novel, movie, or play can be set in New York City. A bracelet can be set in emeralds. You can set tight by printing, you can set a table, you can set a plant to grow.

You could be set thinking by something. You could have set a problem, set an example, set a record, set a date, or set your watch to a specific time. And speaking of setting things to a specific time, you can also set your alarm clock to ring at a specific time. You can set the volume; something can be set in cooking, and a broken bone can also be set. The sun can set, a fire can set, and someone can be set in a seat. If it sounds like a lot, that's just the first meaning.

There could be a set of false teeth; you could have a robotics set. You could watch a TV set. Speaking of TV, in filmmaking, a set is a location that something is filmed in. A filming set could also be the in which something is filmed. The director was interviewed on set for the third definition. There could be a set procedure in something; you could have a set expression. These words are set beforehand, and I have set about listing some of the definitions of "set," which I have done.

Now look, if I list off all of them, you're going to fall asleep, and I'm going to get bored. So that was long, and we barely even scratched the surface of the sets that there are. But what about "run"? "Run" may at first seem to have one definition: to run, to move at a pace that is faster than a walk, never keeping both feet on the ground at the same time. However, "run" could also mean competing in a race—she ran in the 200m. You can spend the whole day running after kids—if you're a babysitter, you probably know this very well.

A rumor can run through a group. Someone driving could, though it certainly isn't advisable, run a red light or run their car off the road. Boats can run rapids. You can run your hands under a faucet, and if you were very sad or just have allergies, your nose would be running—not literally though; that'd be a nightmare. Red dye can run if you wash your whites with colors. You can run a business; everything could be running according to plan.

A car runs on fuel to operate correctly, and a course can run for an entire semester. A PL could be running 15 minutes late. You know how newspapers are constantly being dramatic? Well, say there was a purchase of a painting; newspapers would run the story, "Priceless painting purchased." Ran the headline—except instead of a painting, it's a banana taped to a wall. Looks like somebody got their pockets ran. You can go for a run, like a set off on a run.

"Run" has a clear run at the title of the most complex word. You could run for president; it could have had a run of bad luck, and that bad luck can stand out from the general run of bad luck stories. Speaking of bad luck, some people believe that black cats and walking under ladders is bad luck. Imagine there was a creepy guy who lived across your street who had an irritable black cat that was given the run of the neighborhood. That wouldn't be great for the people who believe in Black Cat bad luck.

Also, paint can run—not literally; that'd be very odd, but it can trickle down when applied too thickly. All this time, we've been discussing the most complex words. However, we've been defining the complex word as most definitions. But what if we change how we interpret the word? What if now complex means hardest to understand? Well, now one word springs to mind immediately: "literally."

I literally just thought of "literally" when I thought of words hardest to understand. Right now, I just use the word to increase emphasis on the sentence. However, the primary definition is in a literal manner or sense or exactly. The number of emphasis uses for the word "literally" by far surpasses the uses for the primary definition in everyday conversations. If the word is used for emphasis, then some odd things come up that are, well, complex.

According to Merriam-Webster, "literally" is similar to figuratively—one of its sister words. Figuratively and literally stylish uses can cause some problems. If "literally" means in a literal sense or manner, what does that have to do with placing emphasis? The two definitions don't have anything to do with each other. They weren't supposed to be similar, but because of how we decided to use it, they literally had to put it in the dictionary.

Moving on, we have another confusing word: "ironic." It references irony within its primary definition. Using or characterized by irony, we'll come back to irony in a few seconds. For now, let's focus on irony's other definition—happening in the opposite way to what is expected and typically causing amusement because of it. Computers are helpful; they contain many tools to assist you or allow you to do things.

Once the last time your computer crashed though? The answer varies. But a similar question's answer doesn't. How often does your computer crash? The answer is likely quite often. Ironically, computers crash often when they're supposed to save you time. That use of irony is confusing; it's something that goes against what you'd expect. Now, let's return to irony.

The other irony searching it up in Google brings up several definitions. Turn your attention to the primary definition: the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect. Wait, back up a second! Isn't that sarcasm, when you purposely say things sarcastically? Or is it ironically? Do you see where things are starting to go?

It turns out sarcasm is irony—sort of. Sarcasm is the use of irony to mock or convey contempt. So you can see some words have definitions that are just other words. Anyways, back to irony again. The second definition of irony is a state of affairs or event that seems contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result.

Oh, what's that? There are multiple types of irony? Yeah, there are, in fact, three types: verbal irony, dramatic irony, and situational irony. Verbal irony is very similar to sarcasm—speaking untruths in a way that is so obviously not the case that it comes off as a joke. For example, if it's raining really hard, someone could say, "What lovely weather we're having at the moment."

What separates it from sarcasm is that sarcasm is specifically intended to mock, while verbal irony doesn't have to be mocking. Dramatic irony is commonly associated with the theater. It's where the audience knows something that's going to happen, but the characters don't, and the characters say something ironic. For example, vocabulary.com gives an excellent example. If there was a movie about the Titanic and when the ship was just about to hit the iceberg, the character stops and says, "It's so pretty I could just die," the audience knows that the character is likely to die, so therefore it is ironic.

Situational irony is the type of irony that is comedic, according to dictionary.com. Situational irony is irony involving a situation in which actions have an effect that is opposite from what was intended, so that the outcome is opposite to what was expected. And in our situation of the most complex word in the English language, talking about irony seems a bit ironic because there are so many definitions.

There are a lot of other complicated words in English that aren't thought of as complicated until, well, someone tells you that they are. And if nobody else will, I will. For example, take the word "like." Simple enough when you think of it in like manner, "with similarly to in the manner characteristic of." An example of a sentence with that definition would be something like, "She ran like a lightning bolt."

Another use comes to mind: "He's like his mother." Oh, and she's more like 40 to 50 years old. However, there are also the old-fashioned poetic definitions of "like," such as, "I cannot remember a like instance," or "drawing, painting, and like arts." Oh, and don't forget the instances of "like" that are oddly placed in a sentence. Something like, "The guy was standing against the wall looking very tough, like—"

There's like a few more basic ones, but let's skip over those for now. You get the point. However, the informal definitions are more interesting: sentences such as, "So like, why'd you do that?" use the informal definition of "like." The dreaded use is very common in informal or in-person speech, and it's used as a filler for when your brain is trying to catch up with your speech. It's like our brains collectively all decided to use "like" as like a filler word.

Get it? That was a lot! And even all that wasn't even close to covering all the weirdness and inconsistencies that there are in the English language. However, it is still shocking that the most complex words in the English language are only three letters long each: "set" and soon to be "run." I guess there are lessons in all of this. Simple sets of ideas can run far and lead to complex results, and honestly, we really make learning English a lot more difficult than necessary.

Time travel is confusing and can have drastic effects. Imagine a world where you were the last living grandson of Hitler. You grew up reading and learning the terrible things that your grandfather did, and you realized that this isn't what you want your family to be known for. So you spend your entire life solving the issue of time.

Time only moves forward—that is until now! After years of work, you finally achieve your life's goal: you've built a fully functional time machine. And so you go back in time to 1930. You find and carefully kill your grandfather. Congratulations, you're a murderer! But you've also prevented the death of tens of millions of other people. But now, since your grandfather no longer exists, neither does one of your parents, and subsequently, neither do you.

So if you don't exist, then who killed your grandfather? This is known as the grandfather paradox. It sounds absurd at first glance, but on closer inspection, you find out that it is, in fact, logical. Does the timeline you're living in snap off into a new one? Or have you literally changed history forever? Well, it isn't really history now, is it? You're just impacting your new present.

If you were to travel back to the modern day, 2021, what might the world look like? Would it even exist? Paradoxes are all around us, and you would be surprised at how common they are in our day-to-day lives. I'm sure everyone watching this video has been to the beach before. And if you haven't, well, you should try it sometime. The water is beautiful, and the heaps of sand make really nice sand castles until the tides knock them over and, well, ruin them.

But wait, what makes a heap of sand a heap of sand? Let's say this heap of sand contains 1 million grains of sand. Let's remove just a single grain of sand. Does it still remain a heap? Yes? Well, how about I take out another and another? If your answer is still yes, then we must come to the conclusion that even after I take out 999,999 grains of sand, it still remains a heap of sand.

Let's take a different approach. Let's do it in reverse. Starting with one grain of sand, we go from 1 to 10 to 10,000. At what point does it become a heap of sand again? We apply labels to so many things, mostly for visual purposes, but in theory, things can get pretty confusing. The most expensive cruise ship in the world is named the Symphony of the Seas, and it costs nearly $1.5 billion to create.

The features aboard the ship include 22 restaurants, 24 pools, an ice skating rink, and even a full-size basketball court. For that price, the ship better be original—a one-of-a-kind vessel. After 3 years on the sea, it's safe to say that the ship is still, in fact, original. But as we all know, things go bad, things break, and over time, things begin to need to be replaced.

So let's say in 10 years, the Symphony of the Seas renovates its ice skating rink. 20 years after that, the ship's restaurants are all renovated. Then in 50 years, all the steel forming the ship is replaced with new steel. At that point, can we still call the ship original? Is it still the original Symphony of the Seas? What if all the old parts that we took off the ship were used to make an entirely brand new ship? Which of these two ships would you call the original Symphony of the Seas—the one that had all of its parts replaced, or the one that was made from all the replaced parts?

What makes something original? Humans are just like that ship. If you look at a picture from when you were a baby and compare it to what you look like now, you would see a world of difference. You have new hair, new teeth; you've grown a little taller, gotten a bit heavier, and maybe you even changed complexion slightly. So are you original now? You might say, "Oh, it's your thoughts and actions that make you an original person."

But most of us used to believe that an old fat guy flew around the planet and somehow brought presents down all of our chimneys in a single night. Some of you might have even believed that babies came from the store when you were a kid, and unless you still believe those things now, your thoughts and convictions have also changed. So what exactly makes you original? What makes you, you? It's not so simple.

Speaking of original, have you ever heard of the term anti-Stratfordian? Yeah, me neither. However, these are people who don't believe that William Shakespeare wrote the works that were attributed to him. It might sound like a dumb hoax, but people like Mark Twain, Helen Keller, Sigmund Freud, and even Prince Philip all believe this theory. The argument they claim is that Shakespeare didn't have the education or traveling experience to write the works that he did.

But if William Shakespeare didn't write the books, then who did? The bootstrap paradox might just have the answer. It's the year 2109, and a young boy named William, who was in love with Shakespeare's works, stumbled upon a time machine. So, as any normal person wouldn't do, he got inside the machine and set the time to 1610, the height of Shakespeare's popularity.

Upon his arrival, he went in search of the famous playwright in London, where he was working at the time. The boy asked a few people, but no one knew where to find the great Shakespeare. In fact, they had never even heard the name before. Confused and devastated, the boy didn't know what was going on. But then he remembered that he always carries a copy of Romeo and Juliet in his bag because who doesn't, right?

So he brought out his book, rewrote it, and published it under the name William Shakespeare in honor of his idol. But if there was no William Shakespeare to begin with, who wrote the Romeo and Juliet that he brought with him? This is the bootstrap paradox—an object or piece of information that is sent back in time essentially becomes trapped in the past in an infinite cause-and-effect loop. It has no point of origin.

Now, in our scenario, that boy is stuck in what is known as a causal loop. In the future, in 2109, as a young boy, he'll stumble upon the Romeo and Juliet book again, and the exact same sequence of events will happen again and again forever. This begs the question: how do we know that we aren't just reliving what has already happened? How are we sure that every day we wake up, we're not stuck in a causal loop as well?

Because here's the thing: if we were, we would never know. Although we can remember the past, we can't remember the future, so we would never know if something that's about to happen has already happened. Deja Vu gets us pretty close though, literally translating to "already seen." Deja Vu is the feeling that you've experienced the present situation before. But what if Deja Vu isn't just a feeling? What if we're truly reliving that present event again and again, and we can only remember it in parts because our brains just aren't strong enough to retain all the information in the loop?

The older we get, the worse our observation skills become. Our brains feel like we already understand how the world works, and so we draw conclusions about things that we can never say for sure are true. How do you know the light in the fridge is off if you've never seen it for yourself? If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound? You can make assumptions, but you can never be certain.

This paradox is called Schrodinger's cat, and the way it was originally phrased is a lot more grim. Basically, you put a cat in a box with poisonous gas and a radioactive atom that has a 50% chance of decaying within the next hour. If the atom decays completely, it triggers the gas, which then kills the cat. However, the radioactive decay is completely random, and so no one can tell when exactly that might happen. What is the state of the cat before Schrodinger opens the box? Is it dead or alive? Essentially, Schrodinger is saying that until the box is opened, the cat must be thought of as both alive and dead.

It exists in a blurred reality. When Schrodinger observes it, the cat then fits into a single reality. Who knows? Maybe the other possibility happens in a parallel universe. Until the box is opened, neither outcome can be certain. All right, we went pretty dark there for a moment. And as the saying goes, there's a rainbow after every storm. But is there? The rainbow only exists when we look at it. When you take your eyes away, the rainbow ceases to exist. This isn't a paradox; it's just really fun to think about.

Rainbows are basically optical illusions formed by raindrops, the sun, and the angle we're seeing everything from. This is why you can never see the end of a rainbow. No matter how fast or how far you move, the rainbow will always stay the same distance away from you. While scientists give this explanation for the existence of a rainbow, religious people attribute it to the work of a deity, a God. But whether you believe in a God or you believe in nothing, this causes me to question things.

It brings to mind the omnipotent paradox: can an omnipotent being create a rock too big for themselves to lift? Think about it for a second. If you say yes, then they aren't omnipotent because there now exists something they cannot do—a rock they cannot lift. And if you say no, then how can they be regarded as omnipotent if they can't do anything and everything? Well, if we ever find this omnipotent being, maybe they'll also be omniscient and finally put this paradox to rest. Until then, we keep searching—searching for knowledge.

Learning is a fundamental part of life; it's what's gotten us this far as a species. We saw the world around us, asked questions about how it works, got answers, and we learned. Or at least this is what the scientific method describes to us. But the truth is, we never learn anything new by asking questions. We only learn answers that already existed. In the words of Socrates, "A man cannot search either for what he knows or for what he does not know. He cannot search for what he knows since he knows it; there is no need to search. Nor for what he does not know, for he does not know what to look for."

Which is a strange quote because every scientific, technological, and philosophical breakthrough we have achieved has come from asking questions. Or has it? A while ago, I made a video titled "The English Language is a Giant Meme," because it is. But creating that video didn't only open my eyes to the many confusions in the language, but it also kept my eyes open to finding even more discrepancies in the future.

The word "autological" refers to a word that describes itself. "Multisyllabic" is multi-lab. A noun is a noun in English is English. "Heterological," on the other hand, refers to words that do not describe themselves. "Blue" isn't blue; "hyphenated" isn't hyphenated; and "triangle" isn't a triangle. "Autological" is autological since it describes itself, but is "heterological" heterological? If you say no, that means it describes itself, which means it is heterological. But then if you say yes, that means it does not describe itself, which means it is heterological.

The endless loop continues forever, and you know, guys, I have a confession to make: this entire video was a lie. If that statement is true, then everything in this video is a lie, including that statement. Which means everything in this video is true. But if everything in the video is true, then that statement must also be true. But if that statement isn't true, it isn't. You got it? Good! Is anything I said true? Is anything truly real? I'll let you decide on that one.

Besides, time travel is confusing and can have drastic effects. Humans are a beautiful but weird species. As evolved as we are, we still struggle with the simplest things like chaos and chance. Our brains are constantly trying to recognize patterns to create meaning and order to things that oftentimes are just random. This quest to find patterns in things has led us to see the world in threes—the smallest number of occurrences it takes for something to become, at least to us, a pattern.

When we see something the first time, it's an accident, a thing of chance. When we see it the second time, it becomes a coincidence—something to pause and think about, but not enough to make us stop in our tracks. When we see something for a third time though, it becomes a pattern because our brains are designed to see the third occurrence as a pattern. The number three has become more significant to humanity than any other whole number: "Omni trium perfectum."

I find it quite poetic that it's three Latin words that describe the divinity that humans have given to the number three, translated to mean everything that comes in threes is perfect. It preaches that three is the number of completion, of perfection, of harmony. When you look around our world, it's hard to argue against this philosophy. The number three is everywhere and serves as an important purpose in almost every aspect of our lives.

It cuts across religions, traditions, and philosophies. The best expression of this philosophy is in human life itself. One day we're born; one day we die, and we live the rest of our lives in between. Three. That life is also in three parts, or as we refer to it, three developmental stages: childhood, adolescence, and adulthood! In most parts of the world, we also spread out our school systems into these three stages. In childhood, it's Ary education; when we become adolescents, it's secondary education; and when we're adults, it's tertiary education.

You see, except in the phrase "beginning, middle, and end," the number three does not signify the end. It signifies the completion of the necessary. Yes, you can break down the developmental stages of life further; you can split education into more stages. You can create more than three—there would always be four, five, and six. But at the end of the day, when all is said and done, when push comes to shove, three is the least amount of options we need to make it make sense, to make it feel rounded, to make it feel complete.

Many religions around the world use the concept of threes. In Hinduism, there's Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesh. In Christianity, it's God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In Greek mythology, it's Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. In Judaism, there are three Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I could go on and on and on, but I'm sure you get the point. These are all religions from all over the world, all ascribing a certain importance to the number of three, long before they ever interacted with one another.

And it makes sense. Just look out into nature and you'll recognize threes all around us. Look up into the sky and you'll see the sun, the moon, and the stars. Before we discovered fire, there were only three fundamental elements available to us: earth, sea, and air. We observe the world in three dimensions: length, width, and height. We can move left to right, forward to backward, and up and down.

The objects we use every day—from the houses we live in to the vehicles we use for transportation—whether it's by land, sea, or air, all exist in these three dimensions: length, width, and height. Even the way we perceive time is in threes: past, present, and future; beginning, middle, and end; yesterday, today, and tomorrow. It's no wonder that long before mathematics and physics were a thing, we could feel and understand the uniqueness of the number three in our world.

It's for these reasons that people from all around the world, raised on different beliefs and traditions, all have that feeling deep inside their chest that the number three is just perfect. The point where everything comes full circle, where everything before was incomplete and everything after is simply an addition. Think about it: the triangle is the first shape with straight lines that can close off. If your goal was to close off the shape, every other line is simply extra.

To make anything stand without it being a balancing act, you need a minimum of three legs. Yes, you could add four, five, or six, but three is complete as it is. The number three is the first and only number that is the sum of its previous numbers. There's one, there's two, and then there's three—a combination of one and two. It just feels complete. One is the beginning; two is the middle; and three is the end—a combination of the two that came before.

This attraction to the number three transcends religion, lore, and mysticism. It is also in the stories we tell, in the traditions we pass down to the next generation. In our fairy tales, there were three little pigs who had to deal with the big bad wolf. Goldilocks walked into the house of three bears and found three bowls of porridge, three chairs in the living room, and three beds in the bedroom. The three blind mice ran up the clock; the three little kittens lost their mittens; there were three musketeers, and genies always seem to grant three wishes.

Threes have been used in our stories for as long as we've been telling them, and it's not difficult to understand why. The number three is the perfect blend of brevity, rhythm, and meaning. It's often the smallest unit that can include a complete message, tell a complete story, teach a complete lesson. It's small enough to remember but detailed enough to be impactful. Because of this, three has become a powerful tool in storytelling, and most people use it in speeches to make them powerful, insightful, and memorable.

First, we give the speech a powerful title like "Three Habits for a Successful Life." Then we divide the speech into three parts: introduction, body, and conclusion. Next, we use stories broken down into three acts and sprinkle triads throughout our speeches to drive home the point even further. We say things like, "To be successful in life, you must be disciplined, determined, and persistent." That sounded like a great idea, didn't it? It's the power of three!

Even in movies, the number three is important. From pre-production to production and then post-production, the number three guides the entire filmmaking process far more than you might realize. When writing the story, the writers break it down into three parts: introduction, conflict, and resolution. When the movie goes into production, the Director of Photography uses the rule of thirds to make sure that each scene is framed correctly.

They also need to make sure that the aperture, shutter speed, and ISO are nailed on so that they get the perfect exposure. The sound engineers aren't left out; they have to use the 3:1 rule to prevent phase issues when recording with multiple microphones. Then once everything is perfect, the director yells, "Lights, camera, action!" And on the third shout, the actors start reciting their lines. When the director yells "cut," everyone else's job is done, except three in the video editing room.

The impact of a shot is dependent on the shot that came before it and affects the shot that comes right after it—three. When producers and directors are talking about the movies they've just produced and trying to market it to the world, they fall back on the rules of threes in their speeches. "This movie is going to be impactful, insightful, and immersive." Once all is said and done, they go back to the studio to create two more movies because everyone knows that all good movies come in trilogies—The Godfather, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Back to the Future, Toy Story.

And we all know that most television series go bad after their third season. It's just the power of three. The English language is a giant meme. It's been almost three years since I made that video, and I still find new things about the language that keep reaffirming that statement. You see, the English language is too complex for no reason. The truth is that all we really need to make a meaningful sentence is three words: subject, object, verb—in any order.

"I want water!" "Tree fell down." With the right context, you would be able to completely understand what I mean when I say these sentences. Two words won't quite work, and four or more words as well. Language just is, choosing to be complex for complexity's sake. However, even English cannot fight against the perfection of three completely.

That's why adjectives have comparatives and superlatives, like big, bigger, and biggest. Let's take a moment to look away from the English language. Have you ever tried to subscribe for a service online only to be greeted by the famous three-tiered pricing? Usually, it'll say something like basic, advanced, and premium. If you have, did you pause to think, "Hm, why are there almost always three options? Why not two? Why not four or five? Why three?"

First, I think we can all agree that the reason there needs to be more than one offering is because we all don't have the same needs. So by offering different options, these companies can satisfy the needs of multiple different customers at the same time. Second, people like the ability to choose. We all like to feel like we're making a decision when we buy something—something. So the ability to choose from something as simple as the color to the number of features we need helps to give us that feeling of control that we desire.

Third, three is the perfect number of options. Researchers from multiple universities discovered that having too many options affects our self-control. People who are faced with multiple different options often find it more difficult to stay focused, handle daily tasks, or even do something as simple as take their medicine. The researchers had a bunch of shoppers record how much decision-making they had to do while they were shopping throughout the day.

When they were done shopping, the researchers then presented these people with simple math problems for them to solve. The researchers discovered that the more choices the shoppers had to make throughout their shopping spree, the worse they performed on the math problem. This might sound really scary considering how many choices we have to make throughout the day, but it only goes to show how important the number three is yet again.

Three acts as the perfect number where we have just enough options to feel like we're actually making a choice, but not so much that we get decision fatigue. When you think about it, the importance of three only seems to become more glaring in sports. The number three is everywhere. In basketball, a shot made from far out gets you three points. In soccer, a win in a match gets you three points. Three goals get you a hat-trick and winning three trophies in one season—a treble! Or in consecutive seasons, a three-peat is considered one of the most prestigious things you can do in professional wrestling. You pin your opponents on the count of three.

In fact, the triathlon is a sport that consists of three other sports. I can keep going on and on about threes—the number that has its branches in almost every aspect of our lives. Its roots are deep within our subconscious. Its finds spread across languages, cultures, and walks of life. I can keep talking about the threes from the morning till afternoon and then night, and I still won't be able to exhaust all the beauty, mystery, and harmony in that number. So the next time you're out in the world, remember this: Omni trium perfectum. Everything that comes in threes is perfect.