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Popular Etymology
A false etymology (fake etymology or pseudo-etymology) is a false theory about the origin or derivation of a specific word or phrase. When a false etymology becomes a popular belief in a cultural/linguistic community, it is a folk etymology (or popular etymology). Nevertheless, folk/popular etymology may also refer to the process by which a word or phrase is changed because of a popular false etymology. To disambiguate the usage of the term "folk/popular etymology", Ghil'ad Zuckermann proposes a clear-cut distinction between the derivational-only popular etymology (DOPE) and the generative popular etymology (GPE): the DOPE refers to a popular false etymology involving no neologization, and the GPE refers to neologization generated by a popular false etymology. Such etymologies often have the feel of urban legends 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. O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Folk Etymology
Folk etymology – also known as (generative) popular etymology, analogical reformation, (morphological) reanalysis and etymological reinterpretation – is a change in a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a more familiar one through popular usage. The form or the meaning of an archaic, foreign, or otherwise unfamiliar word is reinterpreted as resembling more familiar words or morphemes. The term ''folk etymology'' is a loan translation from German ''Volksetymologie'', coined by Ernst Förstemann in 1852. Folk etymology is a productive process in historical linguistics, language change, and social interaction. Reanalysis of a word's history or original form can affect its spelling, pronunciation, or meaning. This is frequently seen in relation to loanwords or words that have become archaic or obsolete. Folk/popular etymology may also refer to a popular false belief about the etymology of a word or phrase that does not lead to a change in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 surname, nor does his name originate from the word "crap", although the surname may have helped popularize the word. The surname "Crapper" is a variant of "Cropper", which originally referred to someone who harvested crops. The word "crap" ultimately comes from Medieval Latin ''crappa'', meaning "chaff". *Fuck: The word "fuck" did not originate as an acronym of "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge", either as a sign posted above adulterers in the stocks, or as a criminal charge against members of the British Armed Forces; nor did it originate during the 15th-century Battle of Agincourt as a corruption of "pluck yew" (an idiom falsely attributed to the English for drawing a longbow). The word did not originate in Christianized Anglo-Saxon Engla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 phonetically and semantically similar words or roots from the adopting language. Thus the approximate sound and meaning of the original expression in the source language are preserved, though the new expression (the PSM – the phono-semantic match) in the target language may sound native. Phono-semantic matching is distinct from calquing, which includes (semantic) translation but does not include phonetic matching (i.e., retention of the approximate sound of the borrowed word through matching it with a similar-sounding pre-existent word or morpheme in the target language). Phono-semantic matching is also distinct from homophonic translation, which retains the sound of a word but not the meaning. History The term "phono-semantic matching" was introduced by linguist and revivalist Gh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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'', "sound", and ''aisthema'', "perception" (from ''aisthanomai'', "I perceive"). For example, sequence "sl-" appears in English words denoting low-friction motion, like "slide", "slick" and "sled". A phonestheme is different from a phoneme (a basic unit of word-differentiating sound) or a morpheme (a basic unit of meaning) because it does not meet the normal criterion of compositionality. Within C.S. Peirce's "theory of signs" the phonestheme is considered to be an "icon" rather than a "symbol" or an "index". Identification Phonesthemes are of critical interest to students of the internal structure of words because they appear to be a case where the internal structure of the word is non-compositional; i.e., a word with a phonestheme i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Proposed Etymologies Of OK
Several etymologies have been proposed for the word ''OK'' or ''okay''. The majority can be easily classified as false etymologies, or possibly folk etymologies. H. L. Mencken, in ''The American Language'', lists serious candidates and "a few of the more picturesque or preposterous". Allen Walker Read surveyed a variety of explanations in a 1964 article titled "The Folklore of 'O. K. Eric Partridge Eric Honeywood Partridge (6 February 1894 – 1 June 1979) was a New Zealand–United Kingdom, British lexicography, lexicographer of the English language, particularly of its slang. His writing career was interrupted only by his service in the ... described O.K. as "an evergreen of the correspondence column." References Sources * * Citations {{DEFAULTSORT:List Of Proposed Etymologies Of Ok OK OK Pseudolinguistics ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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. It may also occur from a mature speaker's first language (L1) to a second language (L2) they are acquiring, or from an L2 back to the L1. Language transfer (also known as L1 interference, linguistic interference, and crosslinguistic influence) is most commonly discussed in the context of English language learning and teaching, but it can occur in any situation when someone does not have a native-level command of a language, as when translating into a second language. Language transfer is also a common topic in bilingual child language acquisition as it occurs frequently in bilingual children especially when one language is dominant. Types of language transfer When the relevant unit or structure of both languages is the same, linguistic interference ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 the listener of the fictional and unprovable nature of such an explanation. Such tales are common in folklore genres like mythology (where they are known as ''etiological myths''see etiology). A less pejorative term is a pourquoi story, which has been used to describe usually more mythological or otherwise traditional examples of this genre, aimed at children. This phrase is a reference to Rudyard Kipling's 1902 '' Just So Stories'', containing fictional and deliberately fanciful tales for children, in which the stories pretend to explain animal characteristics, such as the origin of the spots on the leopard. It has been used to criticize evolutionary explanations of traits that have been proposed to be adaptations, particularly in the evol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
False Friend
In linguistics, a false friend is a word in a different language that looks or sounds similar to a word in a given language, but differs significantly in meaning. Examples of false friends include English ''embarrassed'' and Spanish ('pregnant'); English ''parents'' versus Portuguese and Italian (the latter two both meaning 'relatives'); English ''demand'' and French ('ask'); and English ''gift'', German ('poison'), and Norwegian (both 'married' and 'poison'). The term was introduced by a French book, (''False friends: or, the betrayals of English vocabulary''), published in 1928. As well as producing completely false friends, the use of loanwords often results in the use of a word in a restricted context, which may then develop new meanings not found in the original language. For example, means 'fear' in a general sense (as well as 'anxiety') in German, but when it was borrowed into English in the context of psychology, its meaning was restricted to a partic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
False Cognate
False cognates are pairs of words that seem to be cognates because of similar sounds or spelling 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 English word '' dog'' and the Mbabaram word '' dog'' have exactly the same meaning and very similar pronunciations, but by complete coincidence. Likewise, English '' much'' and Spanish '' mucho'' came by their similar meanings via completely different Proto-Indo-European roots, and same for English '' have'' and Spanish '' haber''. This is different from false friends, which are similar-sounding words with different meanings, and may or may not be cognates. Within a language, if they are spelled the same, they are homographs; if they are pronounced the same, they are homophones. Cross-linguistic or interlingual homographs or homophones sometimes include cognates; non-cognates may more specifically be called homographic or homoph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Etymological Fallacy
An etymological fallacy is an argument of equivocation, arguing that a word is defined by its etymology, and that its customary usage is therefore incorrect. History Ancient Greeks believed that there was a "true meaning" of a word, distinct from common use. There is evidence that a similar belief existed among ancient Vedic scholars. In modern days, this fallacy can be found in some arguments of language purists. Occurrence and examples An etymological fallacy becomes possible when a word's meaning shifts over time from its original meaning. Such changes can include a narrowing or widening of scope or a change of connotation (amelioration or pejoration). In some cases, modern usage can shift to the point where the new meaning has no evident connection to its etymon. ''Antisemitism'' The term ''antisemitism'' refers to anti-Jewish beliefs and practices.. Extract from ''Islam in History: Ideas, Men and Events in the Middle East'', The Library Press, 1973. It replaced th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eggcorn
An eggcorn is the alteration of a word or phrase through the mishearing or reinterpretation of one or more of its elements,, sense 2 creating a new phrase which is plausible when used in the same context. Thus, an eggcorn is an unexpectedly fitting or creative malapropism. Eggcorns often arise as people attempt to make sense of a stock phrase that uses a term unfamiliar to them, as for example replacing "Alzheimer's disease" with "old-timers' disease", or William Shakespeare's " to the manner born" with "to the manor born". The autological word "eggcorn" is itself an eggcorn, derived from acorn. Language change Eggcorns arise when people attempt to use analogy and logic to make sense of an expression – often a stock one – that includes a term which is not meaningful to them. For example, the stock expression "in one fell swoop" might be replaced by "in one foul swoop", the infrequently used adjective "fell" (for "fierce", "cruel", or "terrible") being replaced with the mor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Word For "crisis"
In Western popular culture, the Chinese word for crisis ( zh, t=, s=, p=wēijī, wéijī) is often incorrectly said to comprise two Chinese characters meaning 'danger' (, ) and 'opportunity' (, zh, s= 机, t= 機, labels=no). The second character is a component of the Chinese word for ''opportunity'' (, ), but has multiple meanings, and in isolation means something more like 'change point' or inflection point. The mistaken etymology became a trope after it was used by John F. Kennedy in his presidential campaign speeches and has been widely repeated in business, education, politics and the press in the United States. Origins Sinologist Victor H. Mair of the University of Pennsylvania states the popular interpretation of ''weiji'' as "danger" plus "opportunity" is a "widespread public misperception" in the English-speaking world. The first character () does indeed mean "dangerous" or "precarious", but the second character ( zh, s= 机, t= 機, labels=no) is highly polysemo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
