A false etymology (fake etymology, popular etymology, etymythology,
pseudo-etymology, or par(a)etymology) is a popular but false belief about the origin or derivation of a specific word. It is sometimes called a
folk etymology
Folk etymology (also known as popular etymology, analogical reformation, reanalysis, morphological reanalysis or etymological reinterpretation) is a change in a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a more famili ...
, but this is also a technical term in linguistics.
Such
etymologies
Etymology ()The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed throughout time". is the study of the history of the form of words and ...
often have the feel of
urban legend
An urban legend (sometimes contemporary legend, modern legend, urban myth, or urban tale) is a genre of folklore comprising stories or fallacious claims circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or a family m ...
s and can be more colorful and fanciful than the typical etymologies found in dictionaries, often involving stories of unusual practices in particular subcultures (e.g. Oxford students from non-noble families being supposedly a forced to write ''sine nobilitate'' by their name, soon abbreviated to ''s.nob.'', hence the word ''
snob
''Snob'' is a pejorative term for a person who believes there is a correlation between social status (including physical appearance) and human worth.De Botton, A. (2004), ''Status Anxiety''. London: Hamish Hamilton ''Snob'' also refers to a per ...
''). Many recent examples are "
backronyms
A backronym is an acronym formed from an already existing word by expanding its letters into the words of a phrase. Backronyms may be invented with either serious or humorous intent, or they may be a type of false etymology or folk etymology. The ...
" (
acronym
An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...
s made up to explain a term), such as ''posh'' for "port outward, starboard homeward".
Source and influence
Erroneous etymologies can exist for many reasons. Some are reasonable interpretations of the evidence that happen to be false. For a given word there may often have been many serious attempts by scholars to propose etymologies based on the best information available at the time, and these can be later modified or rejected as linguistic scholarship advances. The results of
medieval etymology Medieval etymology is the study of the history of words as conducted by scholars in the European Middle Ages.
Etymology is the study of the origins of words. Before the beginnings of large-scale modern lexicography in the 16th century and the deve ...
, for example, were plausible given the insights available at the time, but have often been rejected by modern linguists. The etymologies of
humanist
Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry.
The meaning of the term "humani ...
scholars in the early modern period began to produce more reliable results, but many of their hypotheses have also been superseded.
Other false etymologies are the result of specious and untrustworthy claims made by individuals, such as the unfounded claims made by
Daniel Cassidy
Daniel Cassidy (1943 – October 11, 2008) was an American writer, filmmaker, musician, and academic. He is known for his 2007 book ''How the Irish Invented Slang'' in which he suggests that many American slang words are of Irish origin. His theo ...
that hundreds of common English words such as ''
baloney
Bologna sausage, informally baloney ( ), is a sausage derived from the Italian mortadella, a similar-looking, finely ground pork sausage, originally from the city of Bologna (). Typical seasonings for bologna include black pepper, nutmeg, a ...
'', ''
grumble'', and ''
bunkum
Buncombe County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is classified within Western North Carolina. The 2020 census reported the population was 269,452. Its county seat is Asheville. Buncombe County is part of the Asheville ...
'' derive from the
Irish language
Irish ( Standard Irish: ), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was ...
.
Some etymologies are part of
urban legend
An urban legend (sometimes contemporary legend, modern legend, urban myth, or urban tale) is a genre of folklore comprising stories or fallacious claims circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or a family m ...
s, and seem to respond to a general taste for the surprising, counter-intuitive and even scandalous. One common example has to do with the phrase ''
rule of thumb
In English, the phrase ''rule of thumb'' refers to an approximate method for doing something, based on practical experience rather than theory. This usage of the phrase can be traced back to the 17th century and has been associated with various t ...
'', meaning "a rough guideline". An urban legend has it that the phrase refers to an old English law under which a man could legally beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb.
In the United States, some of these scandalous legends have had to do with
racism
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...
and
slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
; common words such as ''picnic'', ''buck'', and ''crowbar'' have been alleged to stem from derogatory terms or racist practices. The "discovery" of these alleged etymologies is often believed by those who circulate them to draw attention to racist attitudes embedded in ordinary discourse.
Tariq Nasheed
Tariq Nasheed, also known as Tariq Elite, King Flex, and K-Flex, is an American film producer, and Internet personality. He is best known for his '' Hidden Colors'' film series, as well as his commentary on social media.
Career
Nasheed began his ...
explains how the word ''buck'' is racist in his 2021 film
Buck Breaking
Tariq Nasheed, also known as Tariq Elite, King Flex, and K-Flex, is an American film producer, and Internet personality. He is best known for his ''Hidden Colors'' film series, as well as his commentary on social media.
Career
Nasheed began his ...
. On one occasion, the use of the word ''
niggardly
In the United States, there have been several controversies involving the misunderstanding of the word ''niggardly'', an adjective meaning "stingy" or "miserly", because of its phonetic similarity to ''nigger'', an ethnic slur used against bla ...
'' led to the resignation of a US public official because it sounded similar to the unrelated word ''
nigger
In the English language, the word ''nigger'' is an ethnic slur used against black people, especially African Americans. Starting in the late 1990s, references to ''nigger'' have been progressively replaced by the euphemism , notably in cases ...
''.
Derivational-Only Popular Etymology (DOPE) versus Generative Popular Etymology (GPE)
Ghil'ad Zuckermann
Ghil'ad Zuckermann ( he, גלעד צוקרמן, ; ) is an Israeli-born language revivalist and linguist who works in contact linguistics, lexicology and the study of language, culture and identity. Zuckermann is Professor of Linguistics and Ch ...
proposes a clear-cut distinction between Derivational-Only Popular Etymology (DOPE) and Generative Popular Etymology (GPE):
"DOPE consists of etymological reanalysis of a pre-existent lexical item
..The DOPE producer is applying his/her Apollonian Tendency, the wish to describe and create order, especially with unfamiliar information or new experience
.. the craving for meaningfulness."
DOPE is "merely passive", "mistaken derivation, where there is a rationalization ''ex post-facto''."
GPE, on the other hand, involves the introduction of a new sense (meaning) or a new lexical item – see, for example,
phono-semantic matching
Phono-semantic matching (PSM) is the incorporation of a word into one language from another, often creating a neologism, where the word's non-native quality is hidden by replacing it with Phonetics, phonetically and semantically similar words or ...
.
See also
*
List of common false etymologies of English words
:''This incomplete list is not intended to be exhaustive.''
This is a list of common contemporary false etymologies for English words.
Profanity
*Crap: The word "crap" did not originate as a back-formation of British plumber Thomas Crapper's surn ...
*
Back-formation
In etymology, back-formation is the process or result of creating a new word via inflection, typically by removing or substituting actual or supposed affixes from a lexical item, in a way that expands the number of lexemes associated with the c ...
*
Backronym
A backronym is an acronym formed from an already existing word by expanding its letters into the words of a phrase. Backronyms may be invented with either serious or humorous intent, or they may be a type of false etymology or folk etymology. The ...
*
Bongo-Bongo (linguistics)
In linguistics, Bongo-Bongo is used as a name for an imaginary language. It is most commonly invoked in etymological studies to conceptualize random similarities between unrelated languages. Trask, R.L. ''The History of Basque'' Routledge: 1997 ...
*
Chinese word for "crisis"
The Chinese word for "crisis" () is, in Western popular culture, frequently but incorrectly said to be written with two Chinese characters signifying "danger" (, ) and "opportunity" (, ). The second character is a component of the Chinese word ...
*
Eggcorn
An eggcorn is the alteration of a phrase through the mishearing or reinterpretation of one or more of its elements,, sense 2 creating a new phrase having a different meaning from the original but which still makes sense and is plausible when used ...
*
Etymological fallacy
An etymological fallacy is committed when an argument makes a claim about the present meaning of a word based exclusively on that word's etymology. It is a genetic fallacy that holds a word's Semantic change, historical meaning to be its sole vali ...
*
False cognate
False cognates are pairs of words that seem to be cognates because of similar sounds and meaning, but have different etymologies; they can be within the same language or from different languages, even within the same family. For example, the Engli ...
*
False friend
In linguistics, a false friend is either of two words in different languages that look or sound similar, but differ significantly in meaning. Examples include English ''embarrassed'' and Spanish ''embarazada'' 'pregnant'; English ''parents'' ...
*
Just-so story
In science and philosophy, a just-so story is an untestable narrative explanation for a cultural practice, a biological trait, or behavior of humans or other animals. The pejorative nature of the expression is an implicit criticism that reminds th ...
*
Linguistic interference
Language transfer is the application of linguistic features from one language to another by a bilingual or multilingual speaker. Language transfer may occur across both languages in the acquisition of a simultaneous bilingual, from a mature sp ...
*
OK
*
Phonestheme
A phonestheme (; phonaestheme in British English) is a pattern of sounds systematically paired with a certain meaning in a language. The concept was proposed in 1930 by British linguist J. R. Firth, who coined the term from the Greek ''phone'', ...
*
Phono-semantic matching
Phono-semantic matching (PSM) is the incorporation of a word into one language from another, often creating a neologism, where the word's non-native quality is hidden by replacing it with Phonetics, phonetically and semantically similar words or ...
*
Pseudoscientific language comparison
Pseudoscientific language comparison is a form of pseudo-scholarship that aims at establishing historical associations between languages by naïve postulations of similarities between them.
While comparative linguistics also studies the historical ...
*
Semantic change
Semantic change (also semantic shift, semantic progression, semantic development, or semantic drift) is a form of language change regarding the evolution of word usage—usually to the point that the modern meaning is radically different from ...
Notes
References
{{Reflist, 30em
External links
* Richard Lederer
''Spook Etymology on the Internet''
Etymology
Error
Folklore
Urban legends
Misconceptions
Pseudolinguistics
Semantic relations
it:Paretimologia#Paretimologia in senso lato
pt:Etimologia popular