"Travelling or transiting?" That's the question my wife and I ask each other whenever we set off.

'Transiting' is taking the toll road through France and driving south in one day. A long distance covered, and nothing to see along the way but crash barriers.

'Travelling' is deliberately not taking the motorway. Back roads, through villages and small towns, stopping here and there to have a look around.

So when we go on holiday, to Brittany say, the question is: do we set off at our leisure and see how far we get, enjoying everything we come across? Or do we put our foot down and make sure we're there fast?

Recently we went to Drenthe for two days. As we left I asked: "Travelling?" "Fine by me," said my wife. And so we took half a day over the drive from Kortenhoef to Drenthe, normally less than an hour and a half. We didn't see a single motorway, but plenty of nice villages. And a good little coffee place on the way.

By the end of the second day we did want to be home quickly. So we transited home.

Most people think of travel as a pleasant pastime. But I found out that the English word 'travel' is etymologically related to the French 'travail', work. What's more, in older French 'travail' carried the sense of toil, of suffering. It goes back to the Latin tripalium, an instrument of torture. That meaning has come a long way!

I thought this would make a nice subject for RobWords, the language series on YouTube that I like to watch. So I sent Rob a message. Turns out he'd already written a piece about exactly this, about six weeks ago :-)