Talk:False etymology
The Fuck page mentions the "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge" explanations as being 'folk etyomlogies'. But these sorts of explanations don't fit the description on the [[[Folk etymology]] page. It appears that the definition here needs to be broader.
- There's a popular misunderstanding of 'folk etymology' to mean "an etymology that is well-known but unsubstantiated", or at least something approximating that; that's what happened on Fuck. This article describes what linguists mean by the term; I'm hesitant to describe what some people erroneously think it means. Best they arrive and find out what it is than arrive and find out what it isn't. I came to folk etymology now to make sure it wasn't that, as a matter of fact! Perhaps instead I'll set about finding the things that link here but shouldn't. — mendel ☎ 01:32, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)
More on folk vs fake etymology
I'm trying to make this terminology consistent wikipedia-wide, so I want to put a bit more emphasis here: A folk etymology is a correct explanation of a word or phrase's history; if it's popular but incorrect, it's fake or popular (which is a redirect to fake here).
Writing something like "an incorrect folk etymology" should be a red flag that something is wrong. A folk etymology which is incorrect needs to not only be incorrect but also reference an incorrect etymology. But at that point it's probably better to emphasize that the etymology being talked about is wrong, and not get into details about what linguistic labels would apply to the wrong etymology were it correct. — mendel ☎ 02:35, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)
Still more on folk/fake etymology
I didn't do a great job of making the folk/fake distinction first time around, and a couple of people have pointed that out on my talk page, and I've replied on theirs, and so on, the end result being quite a bit of discussion on the distinction that is on various people's talk pages. To remedy that, I'm pulling out bits from a few of my replies here, so that discussion on the distinction can happen here instead of all over!
Having dug into this further, here's the key distinction, regardless of what I said above:
A fake etymology is an inaccurate account of the history of a word or phrase.
Folk etymology is the process in which a word or phrase's meaning changes because a fake etymology is widely believed to be correct.
Just so you don't think I'm making this all up, here's MWCD13's entry for "folk etymology":
- the transformation of words so as to give them an apparent relationship to other better-known or better-understood words (as in the change of Spanish cucaracha to English cockroach)
OED2 doesn't give it a separate entry, but in this usage note in folk the gist is still there:
- the popular perversion of the form of words in order to render it apparently significant
Columbia is a bit more liberal, but still clear:
- the name given both the processes and their results when, either deliberately or inadvertently, words or meanings are changed to match an incorrect origin.
I personally don't like the "and their results" part (that takes us back to "a folk etymology" again, which is just asking for further confusion), but it's clear there that there has to be a change for folk etymology to occur.
A couple more online references:
- Folk Etymology and Borrowing from the U Oregon Department of Romance Languages
- Folk etymology vs. back-formation on linguistlist
- This linguistlist post indicates that the process sense of "folk etymology" is still dominant and its usage as a synonym for "fake etymology" is rare within the discipline
I think the reason it gets confusing is that the two terms resemble each other so closely — but they're really using "etymology" in two different senses. In "fake etymology", "etymology" means "an account of the history of a word or phrase"; in "folk etymology", "etymology" means "the way a word or phrase developed over time". To compare that to non-linguistic history, the former is like a book about how a war was won, while the latter was the actual winning of the war.
In other words, to say "cater-corner" refers to the way cats walk is a fake etymology, because, well, it's not true. But to say "kitty-corner" developed from "cater-corner" because many believed "cater-corner" to refer to the way cats walk is a description of an instance where the process called "folk etymology" occurred.
Folk etymology is something that happens to a word or phrase, and the end result is a modification; a fake etymology is a particular description of what happened to a word or phrase, where that description is incorrect but popularly held.
So, to determine whether folk etymology is involved, the first question to ask is "Did the word change?". If there was no change then there was no process by which the change occurred, so it's not folk etymology at work.
On the other hand, if there was change, then the question to ask is "Was the change based on an inaccurate understanding of the history of the word prior to the change?" If it was, then what happened was folk etymology.
As for popular etymology, I'm really not sure. I see references that use it in the "popularly-held belief" sense, and references that use it in the "folk-etymology process" sense. Perhaps it ought to just be avoided outright? — mendel ☎ 15:39, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)
Merge Request
Despite the above, a request was entered to merge Fake into Folk etymology. I have removed the request-- the above reasoning is self-explanatory. Mwanner 21:24, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)
- I put up said request. I am guess I should have verified the Talk page first. I am still not convinced of the need for two pages. It appears that folk etymology is the result fake etymology, but not all fake etymology will result in folk etymology. And the words are quite commonly mixed up.
- This passage describing popular usage of folk etymology:
- In popular usage, the term has also come to mean an "explanation" of the meaning of a word based on its superficial similarity to other words
- Seems to be exactly the same as a fake etymology.
- While at fake etymology you find:
- While "folk etymology" is occasionally encountered as a synonym for "fake etymology
- This is all very confusing. And if the pages are not merged, a better (and consistent) clarification needs to be placed on both pages.
- --ZayZayEM 08:31, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
it will be even more confusing if the pages are merged. The concepts overlap, but neither is a subset of the other. If a fake etymology evolves into a folk etymology, it will cease to be a fake etymology. So, yes, the articles should be clarified, but no, I do not think merging them will be helpful at this point. dab (ᛏ) 08:42, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)