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Not sure if it's a false claim per se, as "smelten" is Dutch (Jelle being Dutch also) for melting. A device that melts things in Dutch would be called a "smelte
by tinco 4y ago
Not sure if it's a false claim per se, as "smelten" is Dutch (Jelle being Dutch also) for melting. A device that melts things in Dutch would be called a "smelter". Of course, in his description he does use the English word melting correctly, but he also describes what it does correctly, so maybe he's just being artistic about it.
- kragen 4y agoMaybe it's just an error due to a false friend? I didn't know "smelten" in Dutch meant "melting". Etymonline says English actually got the word from Dutch: > smelt (v.) mid-15c. (implied in smelter), from Dutch or Low German smelten, from Proto-Germanic *smelt- (source also of Old High German smelzan, German schmelzen "to melt"), from PIE *smeld-, variant of PIE root *mel- (1) "soft." Thus the word is related to melt (v.). Related: Smelted; smelting. As usual, once the word was adopted into English, it started rapidly changing in meaning.
- vanderZwan 4y agoTo add, Kris de Decker is Belgian and speaks Flemish natively so is also likely to fall for the same mistake
- kragen 4y agoThank you!