Afalse etymology is an incorrect theory about the origin or derivation of a specific word or phrase. When a false etymology becomes a popular belief in a cultural or linguistic community, it is afolk etymology (orpopular etymology).[1] (Folk etymology may also refer to the process by which a word or phrase is changed because of a popular false etymology.)
Suchetymologies often have the feel ofurban 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. Oxford students from non-noble families being supposedly forced to writesine nobilitate by their name, soon abbreviated tos.nob., hence the wordsnob).[2][3]
To disambiguate the usage of the term "folk/popular etymology", linguistGhil'ad Zuckermann proposes a clear-cut distinction between the derivational-only popular etymology (DOPE) and thegenerative popular etymology (GPE): the DOPE refers to a popular false etymology involving noneologization, and the GPE refers to neologization generated by a popular false etymology.[4]
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 ofmedieval etymology, for example, were plausible given the insights available at the time, but have often been rejected by modern linguists. The etymologies ofhumanist scholars in the early modern period began to produce more reliable results, but many of their hypotheses have also been superseded.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 byDaniel Cassidy that hundreds of common English words such asbaloney,grumble, andbunkum derive from theIrish language.[5][6]
In the United States, some of these scandalous legends have had to do withracism andslavery; common words such aspicnic,[7]buck,[8] andcrowbar[9] have been alleged to stem from derogatory terms or racist practices.