Marina Orlova (Russian: Марина Орлова) (born 10 December 1980) is a Russian philologist, etymologist, and author who has become an Internet celebrity, hosting one of the most popular channels on YouTube, HotForWords, and a corresponding website. She also hosts a bi-weekly radio show on Maxim Radio on Sirius Satellite Radio.
The theme of Orlova’s website and YouTube videos, which begin with the tagline “Intelligence is Sexy”, is tracing the origins of English words. Some of her entries focus on common everyday words such as irony and OK, while others address lengthy and rarely used tongue-twisters such as floccinaucinihilipilification and antidisestablishmentarianism. Some entries also address idioms, including “let the cat out of the bag”, “dressed to the nines” and “three sheets to the wind” or new words like the verb “to google”. As a Moscow Times editorial observes, Orlova’s success is not solely attributed to her pedagogical value:
Marina exploits her blonde-bombshell looks to the maximum: She appears in her two-minute clips scantily clad, pouting and making doe eyes. This is surely the main factor in her success. However, while the number of scantily clad girls on the Internet is limitless, not all of them put so much intellectual effort into their success.
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