Topic summary
Popular etymology
Extracted from the Wikipedia article False etymology.
Definitions
To disambiguate the usage of the term "folk/popular etymology", linguist 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.