QI: Why Butterflies? - BBC comedy

[NotSoAmericanIdiot]

"Night, they go around at the night in the night." - Well said, Alan.

[Ziklos2]

and cats...I ate pussy cats

[TZ2OurLittleDogToo]

oh my gosh this is hilarious!!! love it. 

[mm1k3y]

what part of that was supposed to be funny?

[druxka]

and chicken... i ate chicken...

[TheWisdom13]

..by bats.

[NayokeHenji]

Disliked for making me sit through an advertisement. :\

[CallumTabreham]

@NayokeHenji Sort your life out.

[NayokeHenji]

@CallumTabreham I'm not quite sure how to respond to such a short and insipid comment.

[CallumTabreham]

@NayokeHenji I would illustrate a plethora of ways, but you decided to take the approach which distinguished you as unimaginative and misanthropic, unlucky sunshine.

[NayokeHenji]

@CallumTabreham Not sure how a arugement started, I didn't mean any offense to anyone at all. I simply don't agree with making people watch an advertisement and are protesting.

[MJRNKR]

Alan seems so resigned to his mediocrity but it just makes him so fantastic! His silliness and innocence is really a shrewd plan to make us pity and adore him. : D

[DarthGarz]

Butterflies used to be called "flutter-bys," and from that came the slightly mixed-up word butterflies.

[speebyda]

Why butterflies.....? Why not?

[AngelBiLove]

@speebyda how come the pilars at the acropolis look straight? because they are!!!! stephen, why is the sky blue? because it is!!!! silly QI

[IWannaBeTheUser]

@AngelBiLove

They say of the Acropolis, where the Parthenon is...

[AngelBiLove]

@IWannaBeTheUser another youtube video of an episode of QI much later than that episode. and stephen fry says they are straight :/ . i know. shame on you, stephen!

[fowzie777]

@AngelBiLove - actually there is not one single straight pillar in the entire acropolis...it is an optical illusion...

[jackbox1971]

I love that Rich made Stephen laugh. I am forever trying to make Brits laugh to no avail (perhaps I'm just not that funny!) 

[SuperWiz666]

Hamsters & gerbils & such are 'pocket food.'

I think that caterpillars (where's THAT word come from?) taste better than butterflies...and at least one is hallucinogenic.

caterpillar:

mid-15c., catyrpel, probably altered (by association with M.E. piller "plunderer;" see pillage) from O.N.Fr. caterpilose (O.Fr. chatepelose), lit. "hairy cat" (probably in ref. to the "wooly-bear" variety), from L.L. catta "cat" + pilosus "hair." A Swiss Ger. name for it is teufelskatz "devil's cat."

[0220addverb]

Stephen Fry is not my favorite Stephen, but definately in the top 6.

[professor2442]

@0220addverb

And he's one my three favorite kinds of Fry.

[TINMOCC]

At least he only ate his hamster. I tried eating a porcupine. I wouldn't recommend it.

[MrShavey]

@wubs23 I don't think he means it comes from the Dutch word for butterfly but from the Dutch 'boterschijte'

[neilmcneiler]

They exist to annoy hula-dancing cats.

[greatsayain]

he was jsut about to getto the answer and they cut if off!

[p123vn]

Eaten a lot by bats.

By bats.

:D

[rollerfairy182]

at 0:56 is that what i think it is? rich hall smiling?

[SkrateBeastin]

Damn, our ancestors were stupid.

"They thought they shat butter."

[cathalmaccuille]

@SkrateBeastin

its not that hard to fathom

honey is the puke of bees.

and milk is .... well i dont know what they were thinking when they tried out milk

[wubs23]

lol im dutch and this story is bullshit. no part of the word butterflies even remotely means excretes butter. in dutch they are even called vlinder. which also doesn't mean anything other than butterfly.

[VioIentGoIdFish]

@wubs23 maybe he means a few hundred years ago, perhaps

[wubs23]

@VioIentGoIdFish no. it probably comes from the 14th century word flindern or vlinderen, which meant flying away. in dutch we don't say butterfly, but vlinder. so saying that it has anything to do with butter is nonsense.

in a dutch dialect called gronings(not a language, only like 100.000people speak this) its called roomzoeper or roomslikker, which mean drinker of cream. but this is not dutch.

also, in Duits (german) they call it schmetterling, which is a dairy product.

so he is wrong.

[nanerak]

HAMsters! 

[joelski11NCFC]

BBC I PAY TV LISCENCE STOP WITH THE ADS!

[AlioH89]

@joelski11NCFC it's nothing to do with the BBC it's youtube.

[DobbyKing1]

@AlioH89 it has been uploaded by BBCWorldwide which is the official youtube account of the BBC

[AlioH89]

@DobbyKing1 Yes but the point is it is still a Youtube account. Youtube is the platform, just like when QI is played on the tv channel Dave there are adverts because it is Dave that is hosting, as it were, the clips/episode.

[xRenegadeofDarknessx]

So, why do butterfly's exsist? I still don't know.

[rich0292]

But the Question was never answered, needs to be longer my friend

[kustomkure]

Rich is one the most random funny people I know. HE always cracks them all up with his improbable answers.

[ImperiousViking]

That is an easy question...

butt air flies because it is lighter then air...

[emmahouli]

flutterbys 

[Ciaran0Cathain]

Stephen Fry said "shat"?! Cool

[errrrrrrrrrrrrrm]

shat. aaah what a funny word.

[DdlyHeadshot]

There are moths in the day!  Just not as many...

[bradfordbulls4lyf]

@DdlyHeadshot there nocturnal creatures.... so it may have been early in the morning and was just finish or it was a black or brown butterfly or it just wanted to die (maybe old or diseased) because when i my first budgie and one night we would put it somewhere (eg on my knee) and it would puff its feathers out and close its eyes....then the next moring we found it at the bottom of its cage dead so it new it was going to die as with many other animals

[DdlyHeadshot]

@bradfordbulls4lyf Not all are nocturnal...

[DdlyHeadshot]

@bradfordbulls4lyf Search on Wikipedia for the phrase "day-flying moths". There are over 500 entries. The most common that I've seen IRL is the Burnet moth - a beautiful black moth with red dots that lives on clifftops.

[jacobtribiani]

It's not the Dutch word theory, because our name for butterfly has nothing to do with butter.

The English word used to be 'flutterby', as in: fly by.

Now you know.

[GiniBaggins]

@jacobtribiani Perhaps it has got something to do with the botervlinder?

[RustlessPotato]

:O :O :O Totally Pointless, but excretion is certainly NOT the same as "to shit' :O:O:O

I'll probably have hordes of trolls behind me..

[Xanatos712]

Apparently 'butterflies' used to be called 'flutterbies'. Why'd they change that? Seems like a more appropriate name.

[TheSobek]

@Xanatos712 If someone prefaces a 'fact' with "apparently" it is almost certainly wrong.

[Xanatos712]

@TheSobek I read it on the bottle of a beer cap, so it must be true.

[claumxalonso]

butterflies were around when I was a kid ... gotta love Alan ...

[fl1ns]

Rich is the best, it doesn't matter how funny something is, always a straight face! Even if he tells the joke ..

[pigletruth]

and a hamster!

[fishcrazy104]

fully show plz

[stick1903]

JOSIE!

[LeftyHandedGuns]

omg the butterfly on the back screen...

ahhh!

(i have a fear of butterflies... not even kidding lol)

[f4kadak]

@LeftyHandedGuns i always thought that i'm the only one who has this fear:P

[RuthLeilani]

@LeftyHandedGuns Me too. Once visited this butterfly park and there were some really big ones with 10 or 15 cm wide wings. Horrible. They are just hairy insects that flapp in this scary way.

[LeslieWilsonPerry]

@LeftyHandedGuns Old post, but you and me both. You and me both.

[namsak]

More to the point why post these stupid 1 minute clips.

[hjenkinz]

im gay for stephen fry ... who's with me

[Alphacaliber]

@hjenkinz thumbs up for you.

[hjenkinz]

@Alphacaliber lol, him and louis theroux!

[KingLofiOne]

@hjenkinz Thumbs up!

[QQBistro]

@hjenkinz he is?

[DaBigA1]

Rich Hall LOL

[MrIcePho3nix]

I can't believe no one said that the one big advantage butterflies had over moths was that they weren't tempted to fly into bug lamps.

[raveneleni]

Thats not the difference, there are plenty of species of day flying moths!

[CherryTripping]

omg alan so very adorable :D

[PollyJuice]

I'd liek to see a 4-year-old with a mouth big enough to swallow a hamster! XD

[Notebooked]

@PollyJuice Maybe he cut it up?

[123Shazzam123]

I hate butterflies and moths. Butterflies more because they are bigger and more disgusting. It took effort to get through this video with that butterfly in the background :P We obviously need more bats around.

[Enferushostis]

Here´s something that Stephen doesn´t know. The original name for a butterfly comes from its eratic flying........ It was originally called a flutterby in the middleages ;)

[OhYeWithLittleFaith]

@Enferushostis urban legend

[badhraa]

"Butterflies go in the day" lol

[BobTheMunificent]

I said it before, and I'll say it again... If you don't want to see adverts on youtube (and most other places on the web) download Firefox and install the Adblock Plus plugin (get it from the Firefox site as there are fakes out there).

Enable the Easylist filters and away you go - no more adverts...

[LoonyLooners]

Stephen: "And the moths had been eaten a lot by bats"

Alan: "By bats."

LOL

[RossCoops1]

Hey, even the shows are commercials nowadays in the USA. A few weeks ago the cast of Bones just talked endlessly about wanting to watch Avatar; while Hugh Laurie on House was talking about Jack Bauer in the same week as the new season of 24 started! America has tons of positives, but they don't do "subtle" very well :-)

[ILoveIY]

Well House got away with it cause it was just that one line and he always slips in things like that, such as The L Word and The OC.

[ichalz]

Wow...awesome. Americans are forced to watch commercials before they view a BBC program on Youtube. Does anyone else see something odd about that?

[Zeldakitteh]

@ichalz I am outside the United Kingdom (Not American either), and kind of does not see commercials either.

[PonThePony]

So what? Australians are forced to watch commercials before American tv shows on YouTube all the time.

[ichalz]

@PonThePony

I do believe the point went completely over your head. Shows like QI on the BBC are presented commercial free in the UK, as tax dollars fund it, not corporate sponsors.

Hence my comment that it was somewhat ironic that commercials are placed before videos on the BBC Youtube channel.

No need to treat everyone on the internet like they are personally attacking you.

[PonThePony]

I apologise, it just came off as a typical "Ugly American" thing to say.

[cottonwhiskersuk]

@ichalz

This may shock you, but here in the UK we are burdened with something called a "television licence". Google it.

[ichalz]

@cottonwhiskersuk

I'm quite familiar with the UK television licence. In fact, I mentioned it indirectly when I stated that commercials don't air on the BBC due to the fact that the stations are funded by taxes. No need for Google...thanks much for your concern though. Will there be anything else?

[cottonwhiskersuk]

@ichalz

Only that I'm amazed at how quickly your reply came back - 11 minutes to be precise. Any quicker and we'd be having a live chat! In all fairness, though, TV licensing and taxes are two VERY different concepts. When you said "indirectly" you were't kidding.

[ichalz]

@cottonwhiskersuk

Such is the way of the world when all are so bound so tightly to the internet.

As for the TV Licence, it is still defined as a tax, just a different form of tax than many are used to thinking about...a "Direct Tax." (Similar in a way to property, income, and corporate taxes)

Incredulous still? A TV Licence is monies paid by citizens to the government, who in turn provides a service back to the citizens...thus, a tax, and the reason I described it as such.

[dodlord]

@Draculix

Butterflies are 100 million years old, when the earth is just 6000 years old, simply because butterflies jumped here from the 8th dimension in pink napsacks on the laps of giant orange turtles. Didn't you go to school... everybody knows that

[BambisaurusRex]

@dodlord *bows*

[Akathist]

I don't know where the moderator made up that etymology. Butterfly comes from Middle English Flutterby. The 'b' and the 'f' switched places, an uncommon but actual occurrence to words during the ME period.

[cottonwhiskersuk]

@Akathist

No, I am inclined to believe that "flutterby" was only coined in retrospect of the word "butterfly".

[Draculix]

How can butterflies be 100 million years old when the Earth is just 6000 years old?

[FarKingEL]

Troll harder

[Draculix]

Man, Poe's law is full of shit.

[Gubbywubby]

the answer is: the Earth is not just 6000 years old.

[jessiessica]

Sexual selection?

[EntrE01]

another theory is that they used to be called flutterbys

[locamoe]

What fun! Delightful!

[Archimedes555453525]

100 million years ago is not recent. There were still dinosaurs and all of that.

[Zoiros85]

100 million years ago is recent, compare to 13.5 billion years of the universe or the 4.5 billion years of the earth and life. Remember that the order of magnitude is important here not the precise numbers mentioned above. 1 part of 45 is small.

[Archimedes555453525]

In that case, one could say that flies live extremely long, compared to a photon making a distance of 30 cm.

In any case, a late addition in evolution is not in the age of the dinosaurs, a monitor lizard f.e. is a late addition, the human race is late addition. Butterflies evolved around the same time flowers did. Flowers evolved in the beginning of the cretaceous, and that is a respectable 140 million years ago.

[Zoiros85]

I stand corrected. :)

[itstheownage]

@Archimedes555453525, its still pretty recent, in the grand scheme of things.

[psoriaticcat]

if you listen carefully he's saying they are a recent addition compared to moths, and that moths evolved 100million years before butterflies. Not that butterflies have been around 100 million years.

[LaurabellChestnut]

ahaha, alan davies is just so adorably funny, he's like a lil kid.

[TheRationalRant]

What if they were originally called 'flutter bys'. Because they literally do flutter by.

[Prka01]

Good point.

[z3r0t0l3r4ns]

@TheRationalRant

Oddly enough that is the original theory I learned for their being called butterflies, that it was a transposition of the phrase flutter by. Much the same way that sideburns are named after General Burnside of the American Civil War.

[katgirl9585]

at the end Alen started to sound like a child. LOL :D

[Apv301]

Omg I can't breathe XD

"I think it's evil in front of any bug. To name it like butterfly. Because I would eat butterflies as a kid, because I thought there was butter in it. And Honeybees...... and a Hamster!"

[qwertydeluxe]

Is that Josie from Whose Line? And I love that Alan was so proud of himself for knowing that moths are nocturnal XD

[MrSamu85]

i think we all need to relax about these adverts that are being put on youtube, the fact is, everything on youtube is free, therefor if i have to put up with a 30second advert every 10 videos, then thats fine, im pretty sure i can spare the time, im browsing youtube after all.

[EdeeAshworth]

i thought butterfly was from the word flutterby cos thats what they do?

[lupusthevampire]

flutterby comes from butterfly cos if you switch the letters fl and b in butterflies you get flutterbies

[Mthtmty]

Why does everyone keep talking about adverts?

[powermetal4eva]

I just had to endure a 30 second long advert before my video played :|

[hand2gland]

Welcome to new age commercialism.

[Nicx950]

1: Download and install Firefox

2: Download and install AdBlock Plus

3: Profit!

I haven't seen an internet ad for at least 6 months now... so yeah :P it works

[powermetal4eva]

Thanks ....

[Nicx950]

I was surprised to hear that you had to watch an ad before being able to view the video... never happened to me before I got adblock plus, so I'm pretty terrified that ads have come so far on the internet.

Really, anyone who doesn't want to see ads should really get firefox and one of the apps that block ads (i cant remember the names of the other ones...)

[powermetal4eva]

I already use firefox and I just downloaded adblock so thanks :)

[ailashes]

Is that Josie Lawrence I see?

[domofwigan]

oooooooh yes

[smudzi]

and we we're poor!

rich hall is great

[thomasimon]

Love Rich's pokerface, even when he makes a joke he keeps looking the same

[arknell]

@thomasimon Yes! Deadpan, all the way. I feel he does it more naturally, too, than Steven Wright, who goes on with his slow, slurred speech. Rich can talk quite neurotically, but keeps the face.

[latindancer4ever]

i love alan, he's the cutest

[rabcnesbitt123]

i love it when alan repeats the answer to make himself snd smart

[VanguardBeta]

Shut up

[N4W4ZPRODUCTIONS]

wot a baty boy

[Lauragordon1]

Did anybody notice how beautiful Stephen's tie was.

[Vault101Reject]

"cahll uf dooty mahdorne warefare 2"

i am sick of hearing that at the begining of every bloody video! i get it,america has made yet another war game!

[rubbermuck]

you should get an adblock, I don't get any video, just the video not auto-playing.

[Bolsey3]

what video's? everyones talking of them and i feel left out!

[Johnbgg94]

refresh the page and it goes away

[fritspas]

Thats nothing, in the netherlands we keep getting a commercial for a new electricity company (which is very expensive but claims to be cheap)

[JamageControl]

you have more than one electricity company to choose from over there? thats intriguing. we only have one here in Western Aus... and if you dont like them you just sort of sit in the dark and play with candles. I never considered the prospect of having more than one... mm.

[xxAlchemistressxx]

There's a few here, yeah. And although it can be handy at some times, it's also a mess choosing the best one or the cheapest x.x I kind of like the idea of having just one, to be honest!

[xxAlchemistressxx]

That maurice de hond needs to find a new job, dont you think?

irritaaant!

[fritspas]

Give him an allowance like the royal family gets and hide him in a cave!

Somewehre near the coast, the russian coast that is, and then jsut wait for the ice cold tide to come in.

[ZombieNed]

butterflys land with there wings up and moths with them down thats how you tell the difference.

[dvdsmlprstylr]

same with damselflies and dragonflies, dragonflies have their wings spread out whilst resting and damselflies have their wings up whilst resting

[aderussell455]

and a hamster!

[11amy3]

lol

[11amy3]

butterflies used to be called flutterbys

[insainiac33]

The very reason I came on to this video was to type that lol.

[DumblyBrilliant]

I wonder if he ever ate a Shih Tzu?

[waldofudd]

Butterflies grow from the smaller, less tasty "Bitter Fleas".

[Scarffy736]

WOW, that was poor

[kipling01]

I think thats quite funny :)

[waldofudd]

Ha ha, In my defense, when I wrote that, I was already several beers deep, into a long night. I'm glad you got a laugh out of it. Cheers, Glen.

[darkcanuck]

"when did they start, butterflys? cause they were around when i was a kid"

[theMCRmybaby]

because they're better than margerineflies.

[darkxXxenchantress]

Bill Bailey lives in my town =]

[Photographicat]

WOW- where do you live?!!!

[sjobbe94]

there's another theory about the word butterflies, they were first called "flutterbies" but someone made a typo or wrote it down wrong

[HopscotchFroglets]

how about a 'Pork'upine

[RatherStrangeCat]

My gosh, Josie Lawrence is in QI! And she's blonde! I must find this episode!

[sjobbe94]

where can you find episodes?

[pizzafreak54]

well... you can go to a site to download them. but its kinda.... illegal in a sense

[dcbuff67]

you can find the first season on guba, for free and posted non illegally

[MPAH1981]

i've got ham but i'm not a hamster

[Mysterious0Bob]

So you're a pig?

[jiidee]

*shakes fist* Damn you bill bailey!

[Campusanis]

I love how this comes up at every mention of the word hamster.

[youvebeenthunderstru]

WHY THAT BILL BAILEY.

[dittodott]

ham-ster