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Archive 1Archive 2

False Terminology

It seems that this article is devoted to introducing and explaining terms that no one uses. Pseudo-etymology, outdated etymology, fake etymology... The article should be modified to concentrate less on terms, and more on the concepts. Pfalstad 16:03, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. Your changes are a definite improvement. I don't suppose you would now like to attack the article Fake etymology, where the title of the article itself is a term nobody uses? Much of what it includes belongs elsewhere, or duplicates other articles. I've tinkered with it before, but it could use a new broom. --Doric Loon 21:14, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Sure I'd like to.. When i get time. Pfalstad 03:26, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Slav/Slave

Dbachmann, you wanted to delete the bit about the false derivation of Slav from Slave (or vice versa). I have done some checking, and my preliminary conclusions are 1. that these two words are NOT related, but 2. that the assumption that they are connected is possibly older and more widespread than just Nazi propaganda; which doesn't change the fact that they used this wickedly! The OED gives the information you cited, namely that Latin sclavus is derived from Slav (or some form of it). However the OED often has outdated etymologies. The only relevant up-to-date reference work I have to hand right now is the new (2002) edition of Kluge, but it gives the following etymology for German Sklave:

Entlehnt aus ml. sclavus, das über *scylavus zu gr. skyleúo, skyláo "ich mache Kriegsbeute" (zu gr. skylon n. "Kriegsbeute") gehört. Damit fiel die griechische Bezeichnung der Slaven, mgr. Sklabenoi, später zusammen, was zu verfehlten etymologischen Vermutungen Anlaß gab.

I'm inclined to believe this, as the semantic development Slav > slave just doesn't sound convincing. --Doric Loon 13:57, 1 December 2005 (UTC)


The american heritage dictionary says they are connected. [1] This could be outdated too, I don't know. But the text should not say that this etymology is a false etymology concocted by the Nazis. It should say it's an outdated etymology (according to reference work X, preferably in English), or a controversial one, but still commonly found in reference works, and by the way it was exploited by the Nazis. Pfalstad 17:16, 1 December 2005 (UTC)


OK! --Doric Loon 07:29, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I'll leave it to you, since you have access to the reference works; hopefully you can find an english one. Pfalstad 03:44, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
As the OED (Concise 1999) states 'slave' comes from 'Slav' (rather than the reverse - there is a difference which this discussion ignores), it is not OK to simply dismiss it. I'm sure some of their etymologies are wrong, but that doesn't mean this one is! Apparently, the word was first applied to Slavic slaves in the late Roman Empire, the normal Latin word being 'servus' (cf. 'servant', 'serf'). From my understanding your German quote is saying that the derivation is from Greek 'spoils of war', but Slavic slaves would have been one of the main spoils of war captured by the Greek-speaking Eastern Empire at this time(By the way, I think 'Slav' comes from their word for 'word', meaning those who speak their language).--Jack Upland 01:16, 23 January 2006 (UTC)


It is really not wise to use the Consise OED as a source for etymological discussions. It is not written with this kind of problem in mind, and the etymologies from the old edition are mostly not revised in newer printings. Go to sources which are specialised in etymologies. Kluge is klüger (sorry!), especially the brand new up-to-date edition, and Calvert Watkins (The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, 2nd edition, Boston & New York 2000) is often excellent, though it doesn't give any info on this problem. --Doric Loon 13:13, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Again, the issue is not whether the OED is correct but that this theory is still being advanced in such well-known sources. In a Wikipedia article you should not ignore this. To make matters worse, an apparently reasonable hypothesis is categorised as outdated racial stereotyping. And can you provide a translation of Kluge for those us who are unklug?--Jack Upland 19:36, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, if anyone said we shouldn't note alternative theories, it certainly wasn't me!--Doric Loon 11:32, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, JU, the translaton. Of course there's no shame in not knowing German! This is Kluge's entry on German Sklave (slave). I translate: Borrowed from medieval Latin sclavus, which goes back via *scylavus to Greek skyleúo, skyláo "I plunder" (related to Greek skylon, spoils of war). This later became conflated with the Greek term for the Slavs, medieval Greek Sklabenoi, which led to erroneous etymological assumptions.--Doric Loon 11:32, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

'Slovo' does indeed come from our word for 'word, talk'. It can also mean 'letter' as in SerboCroatian 'slovo'. It appears in many toponyms within the Slavic world. I am rather perplexed by the conclusions drawn by Doric Loon. To claim that after doing "some checking" that 'slave' and 'slav' are not connected is incredibly presumptoius and is a slap in the face to the many linguists and philolgists across time and space. I for one will stick by the derivation of 'slave' found in Pokorny and Calvert Watkins, both of whom claim that slave<slav.

No, I don't think it's presumptious to prefer the most modern authorities, and it certainly is not a slap in the face to the great philologians to think that even they may have made claims which are susceptible to dating. Pokorny must have had a linguistic nimbus emanating from his forehead, but there have been 80 years of scholarship since then. BTW, there is no argument that Slav comes from the Slavic root you mention. The dispute is only about slave.--Doric Loon 11:32, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
Based on this discussion I think it's fair to say that the etymology of slave from Slav is controversial, not clearly false.--Jack Upland 00:45, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

In accordance with Duden - Das Herkunftswörterbuch (2. Auflage, Bibliographisches Institut & F.A. Brockhaus AG), the german terms "Sklave" and "Slawe" are identically. Both came from the greek "sklábos", which is identically whith "sklabēnós". In Latin, both forms ("slavus", "sclavus") became used. The germans first used "slave" and then "sclave". I think that the germans came to england between "slave" and "sclave".

I think the german analysis of the connection between slav/slav ist the most intensiv and the quoted informations are up-to-date. Because the nazi prapaganda this topic was frequently discussed and it had a great part of the public attention. --212.161.168.6 01:59, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

>the semantic development Slav > slave just doesn't sound convincing.< True or not, I'm afraid it's not at all unconvincing. The Old English word for 'Welshman' (originally meaning Romanised foreigner) apparently had a similar meaning. I've edited the article to at least point out that the etymology did not originate with the Nazis (which was misleading) and that it's still accepted by many authorities, rightly or wrongly. garik 15:49, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

But why isn't it convincing? Give reasons!--Jack Upland 02:44, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I said it was convincing. It doesn't strike me as an unusual development. Though, of course, that doesn't mean it's true. garik 23:50, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Sorry - double-crossed by the double negative...--Jack Upland 02:31, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
I think the german analysis of the connection between slav/slav ist the most intensiv
-Fair enough. So let's not ignore the fact that DUDEN, the same edition as quoted above, states that Sklave "ist letztlich identisch mit dem Volksnamen der 'Slawen'. Die appellativische Bedeutung "Sklave" geht auf den Sklavenhandel im mittelalterlichen Orient zurueck, dessen Opfer vorwiegend Slawen waren."
Summarised in English: 'Sklave' (slave) is ultimately identical to the ethnic name Slav. This goes back to the mediaeval oriental slave-trade whose victims where overwhelmingly Slavic. garik 09:51, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

One theory is that Slav comes from "slavo" meaning glory. It seems more likely that it comes from the same root, but in its meaning of "to talk": so Slavs were "speaking people" as opposed to nimyets, dumb people (in other words, Germans, whose language was incomprehensible to Slavs). --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 17:08, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Original version of the word slav is slověninъ, so no. -Iopq 02:01, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
slověninъ looks like a derived form; may be the usual form of the word in OCS or whatever, but since the element slav appears (if only in names) in all of the Slavic languages it's hard to believe that the longer word is "original". —Tamfang 05:09, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Once again, a confusion between Slav>slave and slave>Slav. Can we get over this???--Jack Upland 12:16, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Merge

I merged a bunch of stuff from fake etymology into this article, as discussed here: Talk:fake_etymology#Deletion_or_redefining_of_scope?. Pfalstad 03:44, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Good. I agree with the merge. But now we have to have a look at that material. Is it all serious, referenced, and worthy of retention here? It feels very anecdotal to me, and a lot of it seems to have more to do with acronyms(backronyms) than with etymology. --Doric Loon 08:51, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Suggest merging this material with folk etymology -- Thoughts? DavidOaks (talk) 12:28, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Before launching on that, however, I have made some adjustments to False Etymology…

  • Slight tweak on intro, explaining the reasoning for many false etymologies, etymology in general
  • Got rid of the disputed “Slave” example, and the less-than-obviously relevant OE “Wealh” – given the wealth of examples, I suggest we should only use very clear ones.
  • The section on “folk etymology” as it stands within the “false etymology” article was badly in need of examples. DavidOaks (talk) 13:29, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Hearing no objections, I replaced the page with a text combining the two articles, and requested that the less general term Folk etymology be moved here. DavidOaks (talk) 14:48, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Acronyms (fuck)

This bit was in the "F.U.C.K." section:

acronyms were not widely used before the 20th century

Someone better add this important information to S.P.Q.R., R.I.P. and other articles. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 20:37, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

But neither of these entered into the language as whole words like yuppie, nimbyism, radar etc. There's an important difference.--Jack Upland 01:39, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

A comment on this bit: ""Fuck you/The finger" ...English longbow archers caught by the enemy at Agincourt supposedly had their bow fingers amputated, since at that time the longbow was a devastating weapon and would have given a great advantage to the English. The unaffected archers could taunt the enemy by raising their middle fingers to show they were still intact and the archers could still effectively "pluck yew.""

I guess this article was written by an American. In the UK, the equivalent of 'giving the finger' is to stick up the index finger and middle finger (in the same manner as Churchill's 'V for Victory'). I've read that 'giving the finger' is considered offensive because it's clearly a phallic gesture. The same cannot reasonably be said of the UK's two fingers. They were, however, the fingers with which a bow was drawn. Given that this was so, the explanation that it was a gesture of defiance by Medieval archers makes more sense.143.167.102.199 12:05, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I have heard it said that two fingers is dual penetration (of a woman), but I can't vouch for this.--Jack Upland 00:38, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

"acronyms were not widely used before the 20th century." Someone better add this important information to S.P.Q.R., R.I.P. and other articles.

Those aren't acronyms; they're abbreviations. garik 14:23, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
And in Hebrew acronyms were used all the time, certainly since the Middle Ages and probably since Talmudic times, e.g. " 'akum", idolater (short for " 'oved kochavim u-mazzalot", worshipper of stars and constellations). Perhaps it should read "acronyms were not widely used in English before the 20th century". --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 15:10, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Bible

The Bible contains many people whose names which are explained with reference to circumstances of the birth. E.g. Genesis 29:32-35 [2] has four examples in succession. Without wishing to offend people's religious beliefs, these all seem like false or folk etymologies to me. Google offers some support. Any opinion from Biblical scholars? Joestynes 00:49, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, often these are attached to stories which explain the name. The technical term for these would be aetiological stories, though this term is not just used in etymology: any story invented to explain the way things are is aetiological. Don't worry too much about offending beliefs here - mainstream Christianity is quite happy with the idea that these need not be true stories. --Doric Loon 08:22, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
The problem is that there is no consensus on the true etymology of those names. Some (Moses, Phinehas, Naphtali) are clearly Egyptian, and it is just possible that "Abraham" is related to "Brahma", but we would need scholars of Sumerian, Hittite, Hurrian etc, to fill in the gaps. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 10:46, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Why can't we say 'some scholars have suggested...'?--Jack Upland 23:28, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Because in some cases there is no alternative even suggested. It would be a bit feeble to say "The Bible explains 'Abraham' as meaning 'father of a multitude': this seems far-fetched, and the name doesn't actually sound Hebrew at all, but we don't know where it really comes from; some seventeenth and eighteenth century scholars have suggested a link to 'Brahma' but this theory is not widely held today." --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 11:06, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Soap and Mt Sapo?

Someone may want to look into the Soap and Mount Sapo legend. --Sean Brunnock 10:29, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Certain feminists..?

What is the value of "Certain feminists have interpreted this to mean that a man had been legally allowed to beat his wife with his fists but not with a weapon." This is vague, inflammetory and doesn't seem to add anything to this article... protohiro 15:21, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Ok, everyone had a chance, so I deleted this line. protohiro 19:34, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Gringo

The RAE (Real Academia Española) states for gringo that its etymology is discussed (http://buscon.rae.es/draeI/SrvltGUIBusUsual?LEMA=gringo), and several examples from RAE's databank seem to indicate the term was used in the 19th from French and English people.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.77.99.77 (talk) 23:49, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Caesar

I've never heard anyone say the Caesar clan was named after the c-section, but only visa-versa. Caesar is said to have come from a word meaning hairy. Is there any veracity for the claim the caesarians being named after the way Caesar or a person of his clan was born? If so, then it's not a false etymology.

Yeh, someone has got this confused: this does not belong in the eponym section. There was a legend that Caesar was born by section. It WAS said in Caesar's own time or shortly afterwards (for example by Pliny) that he got this name because he was CUT (caesus) from his mother's womb. That was a false etymology. However when the modern operation was invented it was named after Caesar because of the legend. THAT is not a false etymology. (But remember that false etymology is not a technical term, and we need to be sensitive to different kinds of deviance from modern scientific etymology: a 1st-century name interpretation is not necessarily to be regarded as an error, so much as a way of playing with words to suggest deeper meaning.) See also the discussions at Julius Caesar#Early life and Caesarian section#Etymology (which need to be tidied up a little). --Doric Loon 09:21, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
But just to clarify: the word caesarian contains a middle syllable -ar- which could not have come directly from the verb form caesus, so the suggestion that the Latin verb produced the name of the operation which was later associated with Caesar is impossible. The name of the operation MUST come from the name Caesar. At dispute is merely the dynamics of the legend. --Doric Loon 13:55, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

"Fuck you/the finger"

Although this is an interesting point about the origin of 'the finger', does it really belong here? I don't think it comes under 'etymology', as it is a gesture, not a word.Ren hoek1981 12:11, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Dead Reckoning Removed

The text: "* deduced reckoning (for dead reckoning)" was removed from the list of examples. Ship's logs from the 1600s and 1700s do actually contain references to the "ship's position determined by ded. reckoning." See here for details. - Mugs 14:52, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Removed chat board reference

One of the three references for the origin of cracker (http://www.word-detective.com/100699.html) appears to be a chat board and is therefore counts as a Questionable source. Xargque 18:10, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Average

The last edit, by Xargque, turns the paragraph into something that is simply untrue. It is not a case of "Silly people think that average, in its arithmetical meaning, comes from a tax on goods. In fact, the real meaning of average is damage at sea, and it comes from Arabic". Rather, it is "It is undisputed that the arithmetical meaning comes from general average, in its marine sense, and that the original meaning of "average" is simply "loss". The question is the history before that. It was formerly thought that it comes from a tax on goods, that being one kind of loss. In fact it comes from the Arabic for damaged goods". --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 10:55, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Examples


Merge again

There really has been no succesful distinction between folk etymology and false etymology -- at most, it's a kind of venn-diagram thing, and going through Pyles and Algeo, Baugh & Cable, Millward, Partridge, McLaughlin and my own experience (I teach linguistics, but I know that's original research, so I don't put any weight on it) there is NO recognized, systematic distinction between these terms. Therefore, I propose (once again) merging the two topics (I'll cross post at the other). DavidOaks (talk) 14:38, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

The combined text would look like this:

/merger proposal text
I've moved the combined text from here to its own page to avoid confusing this page. I also changed the section levels and removed the category and interwiki transclusions and removed one "for more examples see folk etymology" line. Having said which, I don't favour modifying the proposal text for style etc before the merge is decided. jnestorius(talk) 15:34, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

buttonhole

how exactly is this word not based on the damn hole you shove a button through

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.48.6.139 (talk) 19:20, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion to Do Something

This is the same article as Folk etymology, except for this article's enormous introduction; they even contained the same folk etymology about 'lantern' being derived from 'lanthorn', although I have changed that in Folk etymology. Anyway I suggest either the demolition of one of these articles or a furious differentiation; my preference being the first, since I'm more familiar with the term 'folk etymology'.

ClockwerkMao (talk) 19:33, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Merged. Dcoetzee 19:27, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

de-merge

Collapsed discussion

I was really quite horrified when I looked up "folk etymology" and was re-directed to "false etymology". These are distinct terms, and merging the articles simply reinforces the widespread misconception that they are not. Don't be deceived by the appearance of consensus towards merging at several discussions above (Talk:False_etymology#Merge, Talk:False_etymology#Merge_again, Talk:False_etymology#Suggestion_to_Do_Something). When these discussions occurred, the underlying articles reflected this misconception. (see e.g.: 26 September 2005, 9 May 2008, 17 May 2008, 8 February 2009, 27 February 2009 (the most recent version before I discovered this error).

Within the last 24 hours, several editors including myself have clarified the distinction (here is the diffs page). Further confirmation of this distinction can be found in this book. In light of this new information, can we form a consensus on de-merging the articles? Agradman (talk) 20:20, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I dunno, personally I think the difference is pretty nuanced, and the two still seem closely related. Particularly, a folk etymology can also be a false etymology (attempting to explain the meaning of a word by resorting to fanciful comparisons to other words, also gives rise to a "misinterpretation" of where the word came from—the 'attempting to explain' is the folk etymology, the 'misintepretation' is the false etymology). At least, that was my understanding of the terms; correct me if I'm wrong.
We could always retitle the article to "False etymology and folk etymology", make both terms redirect to it, and have a section early on clarifying the nuanced difference. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 20:25, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
haha, now this is ironic: based on the book I provided, I would actually agree with you that the nuance is too small to distinguish. However, look at this book instead, and I think the distinction is clearer: according to this author, a "folk etymology" is not an etymology at all; it's the explanation given to the change in the form of certain words -- namely, that people were misled by a false etymology. (I revised the article's current text to further clarify this distinction.) I would go so far as to say that the author of the first book succumbed to the misconception, too! Agradman (talk) 20:44, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
I like Rjanag's suggestion for a renaming, but how about we simply change the title of this article to "folk etymology" (and redirect false etymology to it)? First, this article mainly is about folk etymology anyway. Second, since false etymology is the fuel of folk-etymological change, it could be discussed in an article on folk etymology quite happily. Third, false etymology (as distinct from folk etymology) is a less obvious article to have in an encycolpedia in any case. Folk etymology is an interesting phenomenon in language change; false etymology is just a reflection of how people make mistakes. There's nothing wrong with having two articles, but I think the amount of material we have at the moment fits quite well in one article, and that article should be folk etymology. garik (talk) 21:44, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
I'm becoming increasingly confused as to what the distinction between the two terms actually is. I'm still thinking about/researching this. Here are some sources I've stumbled across. (Garik, if they don't work for you, perhaps Google Books does not grant the same access to people outside the United States??) [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] .Agradman (talk) 01:18, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
I suppose it's always possible that the distinction between folk etymology and false etymology is an idea that was proposed at one time but didn't hold up to scrutiny, or turned out to be far more fuzzy than originally expected. It wouldn't be the first linguistic theory to go down that road :) rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 01:24, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
It is a little confusing, but it's perhaps not quite as bad as people might be implying. Basically, the distinction is like this: false etymology means exactly what it sounds like—an etymology that is false. It might be proposed by a distinguished professor of linguistics based on serious research (it just happens to be wrong), or it might be something some bloke tells you in the pub. Folk etymology, on the other hand — in its basic sense — simply covers that set of apparently common-sense etymological assumptions that people make based on how some words look like other words: "asparagus must be derived from sparrow-grass", "island must be related to isle" etc. False etymologies based on real research are not strictly included here, except where they enter common (i.e. folk) consciousness, but the distinction's a little blurry in practice. Now, folk etymology is interesting to historical linguists because it can cause a change in the form or meaning of a word. Strictly speaking, folk etymology is the assumption that leads to the change in the word, but it's shifted to refer to the change itself. So this is folk etymology in the second sense (and the one perhaps most common in historical linguistics): a kind of change, based on a mistaken etymology.
One somewhat confusing point is that if we were being very literal about things, we should probably include under the first sense of "folk etymology" true etymologies that come about based on common-sense everyday assumptions with no real research (sometimes this just happens to lead to the right answer!). So, in principle, the form of a word could be changed based on a true etymology, and it would not be entirely unreasonable to refer to this change as an example of folk etymology too. But linguists tend not to do this in my experience (they probably should, as it's basically the same process).
But anyway, to sum up: false etymology is an etymology that isn't true (or, as the article lead coyly puts it—I suppose since our measure of truth isn't generally much more than current consensus—is inconsistent with scholarly consensus). Folk etymology in its basic first sense is the kind of etymology your average Joe does, based on common sense assumptions rather than real research; as this can cause change in the language, folk etymology is used in the second sense as a term for this kind of change. garik (talk) 09:51, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
So one might say that folk etymology in its basic sense is a subset of false etymology, and in its second sense is something that comes about as a result of that. (There's the complication that, in principle, folk etymology in its most basic sense could include etymological assumptions that are actually true but, again, perhaps we shouldn't go there!) garik (talk) 09:55, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
Though (finally!) I should add that writers have not necessarily always been entirely careful in keeping all this clear and distinct. I also don't think much ink has ever been spilt on folk etymology in what I call its basic literal sense. It's only really interesting to historical linguists inasmuch as it influences language change, so that second derived sense is actually the primary usage in the field, and probably always has been. And the term false etymology has certainly been used from time to time where we might prefer folk etymology. The more I think about, the more I'm convinced this should all be one article. There is a useful distinction to be drawn between the two terms, but they've become so intertwined, and are in any case so closely related, that discussing them separately is not necessarily sensible. garik (talk) 10:08, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
(out) Good explanation; I agree with you that the two terms seem closely related and are, more or less, about different nuances of the same general thing, and belong in one article that also happens to define the distinction between them; it would also be nice to include an explanation of the two different senses of "folk etymology", and the fact that it is the language change sense that is of most interest to historical linguists. Incidentally, that same problem crops up a lot in my own field; some technical terms that have different senses, but many writers somewhat lazily use them interchangeably, to the point that the very meaning of the word has become obscured even in the technical articles that I would otherwise be able to use as sources. It makes quite a mess of things for us... rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 12:17, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
Good explanation. Also, you've convinced me that we don't need to de-merge -- one or both of you proposed changing the title to "Folk Etymology," since that is the more interesting term, and I like that idea. Agradman (talk) 18:25, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
When I have time later this week (unless someone else gets there first), I'll try to reorganise the article and include a clear description of the difference. The only problem I can see is getting sources for what I've called the basic meaning of folk etymology. It's clear that this is somehow the underlying meaning that allowed the term to be used to describe a kind of language change, but introductory texts tend just to define the kind of change involved. garik (talk) 10:22, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Summary of discussion:

Agradman sees the concepts as fully distinct, wishes to de-merge the articles.

rʨanaɢ sees the concepts as similar, suggests that we retitle the article to "False etymology and folk etymology", make both terms redirect to it, and have a section early on clarifying the nuanced difference.

garik suggests we retitle to "folk etymology" (and redirect false etymology to it). "First, this article mainly is about folk etymology anyway. Second, since false etymology is the fuel of folk-etymological change, it could be discussed in an article on folk etymology quite happily. Third, false etymology (as distinct from folk etymology) is a less obvious article to have in an encycolpedia in any case. Folk etymology is an interesting phenomenon in language change; false etymology is just a reflection of how people make mistakes. There's nothing wrong with having two articles, but I think the amount of material we have at the moment fits quite well in one article, and that article should be folk etymology."

Agradman provides some sources: [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16]

rʨanaɢ: Perhaps the distinction between folk etymology and false etymology is an idea that was proposed at one time but didn't hold up to scrutiny, or turned out to be far more fuzzy than originally expected.

Garik gives a theory:

It is a little confusing, but it's perhaps not quite as bad as people might be implying. Basically, the distinction is like this: false etymology means exactly what it sounds like—an etymology that is false. It might be proposed by a distinguished professor of linguistics based on serious research (it just happens to be wrong), or it might be something some bloke tells you in the pub. Folk etymology, on the other hand — in its basic sense — simply covers that set of apparently common-sense etymological assumptions that people make based on how some words look like other words: "asparagus must be derived from sparrow-grass", "island must be related to isle" etc. False etymologies based on real research are not strictly included here, except where they enter common (i.e. folk) consciousness, but the distinction's a little blurry in practice. Now, folk etymology is interesting to historical linguists because it can cause a change in the form or meaning of a word. Strictly speaking, folk etymology is the assumption that leads to the change in the word, but it's shifted to refer to the change itself. So this is folk etymology in the second sense (and the one perhaps most common in historical linguistics): a kind of change, based on a mistaken etymology.
One somewhat confusing point is that if we were being very literal about things, we should probably include under the first sense of "folk etymology" true etymologies that come about based on common-sense everyday assumptions with no real research (sometimes this just happens to lead to the right answer!). So, in principle, the form of a word could be changed based on a true etymology, and it would not be entirely unreasonable to refer to this change as an example of folk etymology too. But linguists tend not to do this in my experience (they probably should, as it's basically the same process).
But anyway, to sum up: false etymology is an etymology that isn't true (or, as the article lead coyly puts it—I suppose since our measure of truth isn't generally much more than current consensus—is inconsistent with scholarly consensus). Folk etymology in its basic first sense is the kind of etymology your average Joe does, based on common sense assumptions rather than real research; as this can cause change in the language, folk etymology is used in the second sense as a term for this kind of change. garik () 09:51, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
So one might say that folk etymology in its basic sense is a subset of false etymology, and in its second sense is something that comes about as a result of that. (There's the complication that, in principle, folk etymology in its most basic sense could include etymological assumptions that are actually true but, again, perhaps we shouldn't go there!) garik (talk) 09:55, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
Though (finally!) I should add that writers have not necessarily always been entirely careful in keeping all this clear and distinct. I also don't think much ink has ever been spilt on folk etymology in what I call its basic literal sense. It's only really interesting to historical linguists inasmuch as it influences language change, so that second derived sense is actually the primary usage in the field, and probably always has been. And the term false etymology has certainly been used from time to time where we might prefer folk etymology. The more I think about, the more I'm convinced this should all be one article. There is a useful distinction to be drawn between the two terms, but they've become so intertwined, and are in any case so closely related, that discussing them separately is not necessarily sensible. garik (talk) 10:08, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

rʨanaɢ and Agradman are convinced that the terms belong in one article, including an explanation of the two different senses of "folk etymology", and the fact that it is the language change sense that is of most interest to historical linguists -- perhaps changing the title to "Folk Etymology," since that is the more interesting term, and I like that idea. Agradman (talk) 18:25, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

garik: The only problem I can see is getting sources for what I've called the basic meaning of folk etymology. It's clear that this is somehow the underlying meaning that allowed the term to be used to describe a kind of language change, but introductory texts tend just to define the kind of change involved. garik (talk) 10:22, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I came by to comment, but User:Garik has said pretty much everything I planned to just above - I'd support renaming the article to folk etymology, too. Knepflerle (talk) 08:29, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
Same here, concur with User:Garik to a large extent (except maybe with the caution that folk etymology not always requires a change to the name). The article ought to be renamed "folk etymology", but I don't think "false etymology" requires more than a clarification within the introduction. Trigaranus (talk) 21:15, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Logocentrism

False etymologies are a consequence of the longstanding interest in putatively original, and therefore normative, meanings of words, a characteristic of logocentrism.

This sounds like somebody's opinion, no fact. 69.122.126.251 (talk) 17:00, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, in critical theory, logocentrism is never viewed positively, so there's a polemic quality here. But brushing away the rhetoric, the statement is factual in the sense that it's circular and banal, and it certainly doesn't get developed. It can go. DavidOaks (talk) 17:27, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Sir name

Is "sir name" a false etymology with altered spelling for "surname" in the sense of "family name"? Who uses it, since when, is there a tangible difference with "family name" after all... RFST (talk) 06:28, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

revert to folk etymology

Folk Etymology is a real phenomenon recognized in the literature. The merger of Folk etymology was done in contradiction to the survey on the Folk etymology talk page. Opinion here supports a name change to folk etymology. I am going to request an admin do the change now.μηδείς (talk) 20:56, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved to Folk etymology Peter Karlsen (talk) 01:36, 24 October 2010 (UTC)


False etymology → Folk etymology — The original move was done in contradiction to this unanimous survey and current opinion above supports the name change. μηδείς (talk) 21:04, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.
  • Support The term Folk etymology is a well established concept in linguistics deserving of its own article. False etymology is an ad hoc title. The prior move was done against consensus (see below).μηδείς (talk) 21:10, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment There was a more recent discussion than the one you keep linking to. To be honest I don't remember its outcome and don't feel like reading it right now, but you shouldn't be presenting the older discussion as if it is the last word on this issue. rʨanaɢ (talk) 04:28, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Support. No new arguments have been put forward to support the undiscussed and unilateral move which this proposal seeks to reverse, and which was done in the face of strong consensus not to move when this was last raised at WP:RM, the appropriate forum for such discussions. So the move should be reversed unless new, relevant and persuasive arguments are presented. Andrewa (talk) 11:12, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Support "False etymology" refers to something, as "mistake in addition" means something. But "Folk etymology" is a more complex concept describing a cultural process with a history of its own. DavidOaks (talk) 00:53, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Support, it might be possible to de-merge these, but clearly the more notable and familiar topic is folk etymology. False etymology is at best a subset of that. older ≠ wiser 01:28, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

As far as I am concerned, the original move itself was invalid, given the consensus at that time, and it's not really necessary to get consensus to override a move done in contradiction to a unanimous survey. Not to mention the fact that there is no such thing in linguistics as a technical concept "false analogy" while there is a well established technical concept "folk etymology."

In any case, People can vote and comment. Althoug I don't see it as determinative, I will read that post-facto discussion you nicely linked to, thanks for that.μηδείς (talk) 04:41, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I should mention that I don't oppose a demerger, assuming there is enough notable information for an article on False etymology, but Folk etymology should be given priority so far as the article's history.μηδείς (talk) 01:42, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Prior Discussion

It was discussed before whether Folk etymology should be moved to False etymology. The opinion was unanimous against. Here is the relevant discussion from that page:

  • Oppose per Ham Pastrami, below. So... #1) remove content in this article that confuses the two and #2) merge/redirect 'false etymology' to 'etymology', with a sub-subsection there that summarizes 'folk etymology' and links to here as the main article. -- Fullstop (talk) 16:46, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Good point -- "Folk etymology" gets more google hits than "false etymology" (92k:17k). However, "false etymology" is the larger class -- there are false etymologies which are not folk etymologies, but all folk etymologies are false etymologies, and in makes more sense (to me, anyhow) to fold the more specific into the more general, even if the specific will be the largest class within the general. DavidOaks (talk) 12:09, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose. This is a good topic and title as is. If there's enough material to write a separate article on false etymology, which offhand I doubt but there may be, we should have a separate article. Otherwise false etymology should redirect here. Andrewa (talk) 13:44, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Folk etymology is a well-defined subject and can be discussed at length independently of other false etymologies. While I appreciate the nom's logic that false etymology is a broader topic and could include folk etymology, there isn't really a mandate to organize articles as such; subjects that can stand alone probably should. If a broader category is comparably thin, consider generalizing that topic, e.g. merge/redirect false etymology to Etymology, after pruning the content that is redundant with this article. Ham Pastrami (talk) 02:51, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose at least until confusion between merging and moving is sorted out. Although I'm not convinced that there is no sufficient material to distinguish between the two. At the very least, Folk etymology is by far the more common term and should be the main article. older ≠ wiser 13:02, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose. per all above, especially Andrewa and Ham Pastrami. Indeterminate (talk) 01:29, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

deleted, may be appropriate elsewhere

The following sections are not relevant to an article on folk etymology. It may be relevant to retain them for addition elsewhere.μηδείς (talk) 16:20, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Association with urban legends

Some etymologies are part of urban legends, and seem to respond to a general taste for the surprising, counterintuitive and even scandalous. One common example has to do with the phrase rule of thumb, meaning a rough measurement. 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 (though no such law ever existed).[1]

In the United States, many of these scandalous legends have had to do with racism and slavery. Common words such as picnic,[2] buck,[3] and crowbar[4] 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. On one occasion, the use of the word niggardly led to the resignation of a U.S. public official because it sounded similar to the word nigger, despite the two words being unrelated etymologically.[5]

examples of urban legend type false etymologies removed from the article:

comments=

They're relevant. Snopes talks about etymologies as legendary, numerous entries. The psychodynamics of folk etymologies (as opposed to merely false) are precisely those of ULs -- one's narrative, another merely a fact-claim, though often implying a narrative. If there is a WP:RS that explicitly says there is no intersection between ULs and folk etymology, it may be cited, but the material should not be removed unless we can establish that this is a consensus among linguists and folklorists. DavidOaks (talk) 16:23, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Don't be silly. There is absolutely no such wikipedia policy as assuming that two things are related unless it can be shown that they are not. Folk etymology is a very specific thing, an analytical change in a spelling or pronunciation. These urban legends have nothing to do with changes in spelling or pronunciation. I suggest you move this material to an article on False Etymology or Urban Legend.μηδείς (talk) 16:52, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

The indication that they ARE related is already made by a reliable source. You are thus far bringing forward no authority to distinguish them definitively. And it would be silly to try, as they are indeed interrelated. There is good reason to have some overlap among articles. Now, if you want it excluded, get consensus. The material was well-cited, and you need sound reason to delete it. I'm really not clear about your editing purpose here -- do you want an extremely strict definijtion, admitting only what appears in certain texts by certain linguists? Excluding folklorists from relevance to folk etymology seems odd and requires a stiff defense. DavidOaks (talk) 17:30, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
I rv'd it back to your version for the present, tho' I think the urban legend material definitely belongs -- problem is how to incorporate it. There IS a subtle difference between the way folklorists use the term (referring to a belief about the origin of a term, a belief often given narrative form or making an ideologically-loaded claim about the past) and the way it is used by linguists (they're actually pretty uneven; some of the texts I have handy treat the phenomenon exclusively as a respelling or revised pronunciation based on an erroneous idea of origin, while others do indeed refer to the belief, of which the written or spoken form is merely the evidence). Now, what you need is some evidence that there is a consensus among linguists, and/or folklorists, that one and only one of these meanings is permissible, or a consensus of editors here on this talk-page, that "folk etymology" should really be about linguistics narrowly understood, that is, the views of folklorists have to be excluded. As I said, I don't think that's got legs. It certainly isn't something you can do on your own authority, or your own determination of where the line should be drawn; that isn't even the way linguists work! I think the lead has to acknowledge the range of meanings actually in play among professionals and the larger community. DavidOaks (talk) 17:51, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, as I said, I have no problem with this material being somewhere, and a see also is certainly relevant. The issue is that folk etymology does have a strict meaning having to do with a change in form caused by a reanalysis of a word in order to conform with a mistaken etymology, and in these cases no change by reanalysis has yet occurred. I would have no problem with thus being put under the false etymology heading as a separate article, so long as there is a minimal notable source as rationale.μηδείς (talk) 22:24, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

The source is much more than minimal -- it's quite decisive: folk etymologies are a topic within urban legendry (itself an unstable if accepted term, a subset of legend, in turn a subset of folklore, and very useful to an understanding of the present topic). You have not yet, after invitation, brought forward a source for the exclusionary usage you're calling for. It's not a case of "see also" -- it's parallel, if not primary. Now, if you can find a reliable source that says "folklore has no place in the concept of folk etymology," that's how we have to go. But meanwhile, folklorists have a lot to say about it, as documented. As do linguists. I think the way to understand this is, they emphasize different aspects (though I think the linguists show some serious ignorance of folkloristics, and their usage is flawed). Find a source that says "there is a strict meaning that involves re-analysis and that's the only valid one." The raw evidence says otherwise -- there's a patent range of usage. Alternatively, get a consensus among editors that excludes folkloristics from the topic of folk etymology. See if you can find some sources that narrow things to what you're claiming, otherwise we're going to have to go with what's well-documented. I rv'd to give you some time, but the rv'd version is the better-documented claim. Even if you can find such a source, I fear that in the face of what's established, it can be included as a kvetch, but cannot displace a well-established scholarly understanding. DavidOaks (talk) 00:54, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Can you provide the exact link to the source you are talking about? If I understand you, perhaps there should be two articles.μηδείς (talk) 01:14, 3 November 2010 (UTC)1.

Well, it's beginning to look like your view would require this article to move back to "false etymology" or perhaps "morphological re-analysis;" “acronymic etymologies” are the subject of "Acronyms and Folk Etymology" by S Eisiminger (The Journal of American Folklore Vol. 91, No. 359 (Jan. - Mar., 1978), pp. 582-584;) the narrative associated with a given etymology is called “clever story or pretty fantasy;” Eisiminger cites Brunvand (who was at just that time doing his seminal work on what others called “urban legends” – he never was really cool with the term, but quit fighting the tidal wave; he liked "contemporary belief tale"). L. Bauer[17] agrees with you on the boundaries of the topic, but for exactly that reason finds the term “folk etymology” inapt, and thinks it should be replaced by “morphological reanalysis.” Preston (same link) defines “folk” for this purpose as “non-academics” – well, OK, but it’s not a definition any folklorist would use or approve, and the only possible consequence to accepting his view would be to migrate this page right back to “false etymology,” which is evidently all that “folk etymology" means (hence the sense of re-naming to “morphological re-analysis,” more precise but less-established). Now, I am simply documenting what's known, as something quite self-evident to working folklorists and linguists alike. Do you wish to re-name this page, so as to improve upon the usage of an earlier generation of linguists who used a term they didn't understand as it is understood by experts in the field? I say let's acknowledge – as working linguists routinely do – that usage is what it is, leave it here and document differing emphases. DavidOaks (talk) 01:34, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
The first use of the term folk etymology is in historical linguistics to describe the specific well defined technical linguistic phenomenon which dates back in attestation at least to the Romans. It has a specific lexical manifestation of a change in form based on a reanalysis of meaning. It is a subject listed in all standard texts and encyclopedias of linguistics - a paradigm case for what sort of subject, from what sort of sources, should be included in wikipedia. The linguistic concept is the proper subject of this article under this name.
From what I can tell, there may be grounds for an article Folk etymology (urban legend), or for the resurrection of false etymology with all the matter that should be pared from this article since the name change. I won't oppose either of those options. But the subject does seem. to be well covered under backronym, and one single journal article in the Journal of American folklore doesn't quite equal the weight of the well defined, international, and established concept in historical linguistics.
Can you please make it very simple for me and link to the best source you have which asserts that "folk etymology" is the name of this urban legend phenomenon? No argument is necessary, since I understand your point. Just the URL where I can find something like: "in the folkloristic study of urban legends, a 'folk etymology' is where false origin..."
μηδείς (talk) 02:40, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
Out of idle curiosity, I'd like the Latin and the source for "folk etymology" among the ancient Romans, but more importantly, the source that says only the linguistic usage, narrowly understood, is admissable. YOU HAVE TO BRING THAT FORWARD TO CARRY THE POINT YOU'RE TRYING TO MAKE. Really, you're laying down authoritative distinctions without authority or warrant. Here's some more evidence of normal usage, across a span of time -- (wh is just exactly the way linguists determine what a word means)“folk etymologies” are explicitly treated as equivalent to “etymological myths” in a course a U-Ontario [18]; Sir James Fraser equates the two in note 1 p. 91 of his ed’n of Apollodorus (cites C.G. Heyne); You want one link, well, David Wilton has a whole book devoted to “Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends”. This is all just kind of random surf-up. I mean, this is just stuff that people who do linguistics and folklore KNOW. Happy to document, tho' it feels a bit like Wikipedia:You don't need to cite that the sky is blue.
So where to go from here? Maybe you want to spin off the mis-use of the term into a separate article on "morphological re-analysis," and we can put a dab link at the top of the page on folk etymology, but I'm thinking that honoring established if slovenly usage is by far the better route. It's where people would reasonably go to look up either of the closely related phenomena we 're discussing here, and to my thinking,k that's the decider.DavidOaks (talk) 02:57, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
Lagniappe from Snopes.com: "A constant of folk etymologies seems to be that the odder a word sounds to us, the sillier the story we invent to explain its origins...." sv pumpernickel; "I'm not quite sure what to make of this folk etymology..." ("red light district" so-named because railmen left their lanterns at the door of the brothel; hardly morphological re-analysis; note the causalness of the usage, earmark of the established phrase, as linguists usually take it). "Pluck Yew" is aid to be a folk etymology; the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette treats of the folk etymology of "Lord Love a Duck." I'm really trying to give good weight here; it's well-established usage...DavidOaks (talk)

A Well Defined technical term in Historical Linguistics

I am sorry but you seem totally incapable of understanding my point. Folk Etymology is a well established and well defined concept in the field of historical linguistics. It has its own entry in standard textbooks and encyclopeidas of linguistics with a very specific meaning. See for example, the entry Folk Etymology in the Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics or the entry for Folk Etymology in R.L. Trask's Dictionary of Historical and Comparative Linguistics or the entry (p 142) in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics or Folk Etymology in Winfred Lehmann's Historical linguistics: an Introduction. There are no more well-respected authors in this science.

You accuse me of being dictatorial, but the problem is that I have been assuming you have some sort of actual academic background in historical linguistics, which you apparently don't. For your information, the term Folk Etymology is a translation of the German term Volksetymologie which has been in academic usage for some 150 years, and as I mentioned above, please pay attention, not the usage of the term, but 'examples of the specific phenomenon have been found going back to the Greeks and Romans. From the German:

The frequently encountered interpretation of this technical term of historical linguistics in the sense of a mere amateur etymology is itself a wrong conclusion from the word elements. By folk etymology is known always a specific phenomenon of language change, not a merely false etymology.

The concept of folk etymology was recognized in the mid- 19th Century with the essay on German folk etymology, published in 1852 in the Journal of comparative linguistic research in the areas of German, Greek and Latin, by Ernst Förstemann.

If you want to adduce a different meaning for this term, you need to quote some sources of better quality than Snopes, something published in a standard textbook of folklore, etc., with a well defined meaning. And then it should be placed under its own separate heading. Once again, feel free to expand this material under False etymology or some other head, but it does not belong here.μηδείς (talk) 04:31, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

First of all, Snopes is not a WP:Reliable source. We can use them for ideas and to find further references, but they are of no value as a reference themselves. What they do or do not say is irrelevant to the scope of this article. If they disagree with RS's, for our purposes they are simply wrong.
There may be a concern here that the linguistic sense of the term is not primary, so let's take a look at more general sources. The OED defines "folk etymology" as usually, the popular perversion of the form of words in order to render it apparently significant. They're explicit about it involving a change in the form of words. Similarly, MW says, 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).
Unless we have RS's to contradict not only what the linguistic texts but also general dictionaries say, this article needs to be restricted to a topic of language change. — kwami (talk) 10:20, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
Pardon me, Medeis, but you seem to have missed the wikipolicy that asks us not to be checking credentials. You got some, bully for you. Got some of my own, but that isn't how we do things here. Now, if you have a case to make that Snopes is not a reliable source for folklore, boy, we really need to see it. It's going to cause a major re-write of a lot of articles and going to be a trouble to Brunvand himself, who regularly cites it,(for ex in his Encyclopedia of Urban Legends[19] and mentioned its quality as the reason he did not launch a similar project of his own. But that's ok, because it's only part of the evidence I've brought forward. I have amply documented the usage of this term. I have not shown that it does not have an established meaning in linguistics, nor did I intend to. I have shown that it has split, related usages, and have documented that fact very well. So one of you at least bring forward the very simple evidence you were asked for, the reliable source that SPECIFICALLY EXCLUDES folklore from commentary on folk etymology, because that is the claim you are making in the face of clear documentation (which included books, academic usage and scholarly atrticles as well). That won't make the split usage go away, because it remains what it is, but sure, the act of denial can be included in the article. Meanwhile, shall we move the portion of the subject you're talking about over to a title endorsed by at least one linguist? I don't think we should, but you haven't yet responded. Clarifying the issue -- make sure you respond to this, because I think you're misssing it: there is clear evidence that the term is current within folklore as well as within linguistics, and with slight difference in meaning and emphasis (this is not surprising, since they are allied fields). You have not brought forward the evidence for your much shakier claim, that the term is exclusive to linguistics, and that there is somehow some grounds for actually disallowing other usage. I even brought you a good cite showing that at least one linguist thinks it's a bad term. The usual and sensible policy is to include both. DavidOaks (talk) 11:30, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
OK, have restored deleted material, and provided references for the divided usage of this term. More edits to clarify relation between the two usages; created redirects for "Etymological myth" and "morphological reanalysis" alternative terms for the phenomena meant by folklorists and linguists, respectively 13:33, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

'Nother ref...Brunvand (reliable source for urban legends and folklore generally, agreed?) in The Study of American Folklore (the most commonly used textbook in the field, in press for 42 years, 4th ed) uses "folk etymologies" as the term for onomastic legends at the introduction to an extended discussion beginning on p 84, but repeated periodically. The first ed'n (1968) is cited in "Folk Etymology in Place Names in the United States"(Folk Etymology in the Place Names of the United StatesLeonard R. N. Ashley Brooklyn College, CUNY, Brooklyn, New York (USA) Citation Information. An International Handbook of Onomastics / Manuel international d'onomastique / Ein internationales Handbuch zur Onomastik Edited by Herausgegeben von / edited by / edité par Ernst Eichler • , Gerold Hilty • , Heinrich Löffler • , Hugo Steger • , and Ladislav Zgusta Berlin • New York (Walter de Gruyter) 1995 Pages 471–475 eBook ISBN: 978-3-11-020342-4 Print ISBN: 978-3-11-011426-3) -- onomastics has always been a major intersection of linguistics and folklore. First example is the legend of starving pioneers given to explain Gnawbone Indiana (more likely a folk-etymology in the narrow sense you describe based on Narbonne in France). But he is talking about narratives which are meant to explain the morphological re-analysis, and both of these things -- narrative and morphological reanalysis -- proceed from an inference, spurious or not, among the folk. Have we really established now that folklorists readily use this term? 14:50, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Your sources are a bit sloppy. One you quote from Snopes does not use the term (it only appears in a quotation pulled from the internet); a PDF file you use as a ref does not use it at all. You wanted a ref that false etymologies are not folk etymologies? What about the two I provided which say just that? You're also not likely to get your way by edit warring. But there may be other cases with usage like yours; I'll see what I can find. — kwami (talk) 16:32, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
Sloppy indeed? Have another look at the .pdf. 1st paragraph Last words. Snopes uses the phrase and quotes others who do. Your point? DavidOaks (talk) 00:51, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
Haw! my bad -- reading fast and literally not wearing my glasses. Thanks!DavidOaks (talk) 01:32, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
Folk etymology has a very precise meaning in the field of linguistics--it is a word that has been altered by analogical association to something familiar when the meaning of part or all of the original word has been lost or misunderstood. It is not the story-telling associated with words or expressions that are no longer familiar or whose origins are obscure--that is an issue of folklore, not linguistics. If the folklore eventually leads to a change of spelling or pronunciation, then that would be folk etymology. Changing "umble pie" to "humble pie" is folk etymology, describing "fuck" as an acronym is not. --Taivo (talk) 19:19, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
It is well-established, and not at all in dispute, that the term has meaning in linguistics. Nor should it be in dispute that it has a well-documented and closely related but distinct use in folklore. I don't seem to be getting that distinction across. DavidOaks (talk) 00:51, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

examples from the ELL

The ELL2 uses the term in a dozen articles. Most use the term purely for historical change (or are at least ambiguous); however, the first would seem to support the other side of this debate. Thin evidence, but something.

  • Austria: Language Situation. J R Rennison, University of Vienna
The German term corresponding to Gypsy is Zigeuner (for a male person) or Zigeunerisch (for the language); but this is considered derogatory because of a folk etymology that derives this word from ziehende Gauner ‘wandering crooks.’
[interesting, because the author presumably speaks German. If he means only word taboo along the lines of English niggardly, then this would be support; if that the word has actually changed, it would not.]
  • Etymology. P Durkin, Oxford English Dictionary
Furthermore, the intuitions of contemporaries can have interesting analogies with the process of historical change known as folk etymology, and hence can suggest explanations for formal and semantic change [...]
But without supporting historical data, there will be no certainty that changes have not been masked by accommodation to either language, folk etymological alteration, etc.
  • Folk Etymology. L Bauer, Victoria University of Wellington
‘Folk etymology’ or ‘popular etymology’ is the name given to a process of reanalysis. Speakers of a language, expecting their words to be partly motivated, find in them elements which they perceive as motivating the word, even where these elements have no historical presence. It is called ‘folk’ or ‘popular’ because it pays no attention to the knowledge of the erudite. It is called ‘etymology’ because it appears to invent a new origin for a word, an origin which is contrary to fact. A better label would be ‘morphological reanalysis.’
[...]
The line between an instance of folk etymology and a malapropism is sometimes a thin one, but in principle a malapropism confuses two similar-sounding words (e.g., in an example from Sheridan’s character Mrs. Malaprop, contiguous and contagious) while folk etymology is an error based on the supposed meaning of elements within the word (even if those elements are clearly absurd, like the mouse in titmouse) which spreads beyond the individual to a whole community. Both are often occasioned by the attempt to use exotic or difficult vocabulary whose form is not entirely accurately perceived.
Bibliography
Coates R (1987). ‘Pragmatic sources of analogical reformation.’ Journal of Linguistics 23, 319–340.
Gundersen H (1995). Linjedansere og Pantomine pa° Sirkhus: folkeetymologi som morfologisk omtolkning. Oslo: Novus.
Palmer A S (1883). Folk-etymology. New York: Holt.
  • Mon-Khmer Languages. G D S Anderson, University of Oregon
Khmuic-speaking peoples are known by a plethora of local variants (Parkin, 1991: 96). These include the folk-etymologized Kha Mu in Laos (kha is a general term for subjugated ‘hill tribes’ in Laotian)
  • Morphology: Overview. L Bauer, Victoria University of Wellington
Other aspects of morphology are discussed in acquisition of morphological knowledge during the school years, clitics, dictionaries and inflectional morphology, folk etymology, history of morphology, metathesis in morphology, morphology and language processing, morphology and word formation in corpus linguistics, morphology in pidgins and creoles, splinters, subtraction, and word.
  • Morphophonemics. R Coates, University of Sussex
[...] the somewhat grossly misnamed ‘folk etymology,’ which has to do with similar pressures divorced from the need for a shared origin, as when the English word female acquired its present shape through historically unwarranted association with the semantically related (antonymous) word male.
  • Onomasiology and Lexical Variation. D Geeraerts, University of Leuven
[...] the mechanisms for introducing new pairs of word forms and word meanings [...] involve all the traditional mechanisms that introduce new items into the onomasiological inventory of a language, like word formation, word creation (the creation of entirely new roots), borrowing, blending, truncation, ellipsis, folk etymology, and others.
[...] mechanisms of onomasiological change like borrowing or folk etymology.
  • Orr, John (1885–1966). N Lioce, IVO Sint-Andries, Belgium; P Swiggers, Catholic University of Louvain
Orr was particularly interested in processes of word contamination,word association, homonymy (1962b), partial synonymy, and folk etymology, thus focusing on phenomena that disrupt the ‘normal’ evolution of forms and meanings.
  • Personal Names. P Hanks, Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Brandeis University
Hanks (2005) recently surveyed the main linguistic changes (including folk etymology and the effects of linguistics contact) that affected European surnames in North America
  • Place Names. C Hough, University of Glasgow
There are many counter-examples, however, where the development of folk etymologies testifies to a lack of understanding. An instance is York, from the Romano-British name Eburaco ‘yew-tree estate,’ where later spellings such as eoforwic (c. 1060) reflect confusion with an Old English compound ‘boar farm.’
  • Punning. K Sornig, University of Graz
The principle of similarity/affinity that is at work here is equally important in rhymes and alliteration, spoonerisms, and folk etymology, as well as in irony and metaphors
[here again we have a German, but the usage is ambiguous]
  • Reconstruction, Morphological. B Fortson, University of Michigan
Examples of changes that are often called morphological changes but whose effects are typically lexical in scope include analogy, paradigm leveling and split, folk etymology, false segmentation (of the type [a] nadder > [an] adder), double-marking, backformation, contamination, and taboo deformation.
  • Sound Symbolism. I E Reay
Folk etymology, sometimes known as popular etymology, occurs when the origin of a word is lost or forgotten and another etymology that seems likely or fitting is substituted in the popular consciousness. The meanings of some words that have come to us from the Old English period are based on folk etymology. OE scam-fæst ‘confirmed in shame’ has now come to mean ‘shame-faced,’ taking the sound of face and the connotation of blushes. In the same way, OE brydguma ‘bridegroom’ has as its second element the obsolete word guma ‘man,’ so the substitute word groom ‘boy, male child’ was used as being close in sound and meaning. These words show a slight change in form that has come about by a reinterpretation of their etymology.
[continues w more examples of historical reinterpretation and use of the term]

— kwami (talk) 17:22, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, agreed, the term has long-currency in linguistics (despite the explicit recognition by linguists of its inapproriateness). Now, do you really not understand that that iss not the issue? I really don't know how to make it clearer. DavidOaks (talk) 00:51, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

false etymology

I have removed most of the extraneous material from this article. Much of that material would fit under the heading false etymology, which should probably be expanded to its own article. The remarks in the prior sections above don't necessarily argue against the establishment of an article on popular etymology (folklore), either, so long as good sources exist and the material is logically separate from existing articles like backronym and urban legend.μηδείς (talk) 22:31, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I wonder how useful such an article would be, but have no objections to one. — kwami (talk) 22:40, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
This is really not an attitude that's going to help us improve an article. DavidOaks (talk) 00:51, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

dispute resolution

Medeis & Kwami, you have both deleted well-cited material and ignored arguments. You have established your claim (never disputed) that the term has a meaning in linguistics. You have not addressed what I have established, that it has a meaning in folklore. I really did my best to craft an update that conveyed the two both as separate and related -- the real state of affairs. I really believe that what you are seeking distorts the situation and serves users of the encyclopedia poorly. It is now time for you to take this to the next level, if you wish, rather than edit-warring (the procedure is, I believe, to post a notice at WP:ANI. You probably need an admin to rule in your favor on several questions: that the sources I have offered (Journal of American Folklore, the key text by the key scholar in the field, college-teaching materials, etc) are not reliable sources for folklore, and that linguists enjoy some sort of pre-emptive right over the lexicon (a position no linguist would take). Really, the crudest kind of rhetorical analysis -- noting that your sources are often engaged in a rear-guard action in defense of their proprietary usage -- is strong evidence that they have something to resist. That's not an argument I'm making on behalf of my position, just something that should tell you how silly the discussion is.DavidOaks (talk) 00:19, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

You apparently do not understand WP:RS. Please read that guideline. Perhaps you have good sources, but I haven't seen them, and have seen sloppy sourcing. If you disagree, you can WP:RFC etc. — kwami (talk) 01:27, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
If you think the sources I gave are not reliable for folklore, get an admin to agree with you: Brunvand, JAF, Western Folklore, The Encyclopedia of Folklore, The Study of American Folklore, plus lots of stray examples of ordinary usage. I really would like you to show that Snopes.com is not WP:RS for folklore. I mean Brunvand wrote an encyclopedia on the subject and cited them (the remark about his own website was something he said at a conference in 2003). You'd think a general purpose encyclopedia could do the same. But you have twice made this assertion, and as in the case of the evidence that the linguistic usage is exclusive, you have been invited multiple times to bring your evidence forward.
I am an admin. I followed a couple of the sources you linked to, and they were not convincing. Meanwhile we have numerous RS's that say just the opposite. You may well be right, but at this point I'm not going to take your word for it re. your sources. — kwami (talk) 01:46, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
You're an ADMIN and you do not know that an admin should not act both as disputant and adjudicator? Wow! And you incorrectly tagged me for 3RR? I mean really wow! I have tried so hard not to let this get personal, but I am flabbergasted. Definitely WP:ANI time. DavidOaks (talk)
The whole issue is one of whether the article is exclusively about linguistics. You could solve it by creating a new piece Folk etymology (linguistic sense) I don't think that's the solution, because such matters are addressed by WP:Own -- and I do not intend this as a charge that any individuals are trying to "own" this article, but we clearly have here a concept that straddles a couple of chairs, and one methodology is claiming ownership, to the detriment of the subject.DavidOaks (talk) 01:40, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I do not see any point in repeating to you that dozens of reliable third party resources such as textbooks, dictionaries and encyclopedias refer to the technical term "folk etymology" with a very specific meaning while you refer to snopes and sources which do not even use the term. You have yet to provide an argument that any reliable source provides any alternative main sense for this well defined and referenced concept.

You are ignoring the above consensus of three editors.

You have been invited to add your comments in any of several alternative venues.

You continue to cite Snopes as your best reference, and to add a highly inappropraite demand that I provide a reference for material which you yourself added to the article.

I have avoided requesting that you be sanctioned, given your actions seem well intentioned, if misguided, and that other paths are open to you. In payment for my attempts at tolerance you have filed misguided complaints. Be advised I will provide no more warnings.μηδείς (talk) 03:09, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I will respond to the actual points you're making; the hidden comment requesting you to complete the ref was because it was your source, and you gave only an equivocal "the German" -- your intervention was required in order to get it right. It was downright collegial of me, Medeis. Now, "Snopes as my best source" -- you've made that claim a number of times. I didn't I certainly think it's an estimable source, and gave estimable sources for its being an estimable source. Also asked numerous times for your source identifying it as invalid. I gave many much stronger sources, including evidence of usage which is what linguists actually use. I have not ignored any consensus. I have honored consistently the claim that the term has a meaning in linguistics. I just don't understand why no one seems to grasp that this in no way affects the claim that it has a meaning, distinct but related, in folklore. I keep saying that. Nobody responds. It is indeed frustrating.
The rest of it, including a tone I struggle hard to ignore -- there's an admin review underway. It should run its course. Hopefully we will soon be cooperatively improving the article. DavidOaks (talk) 03:25, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

asked for admin review

Medeis & Kwami, I've posted a note at WP:ANI. I assume you're watching this page, but I will copy the message to your talk pages. DavidOaks (talk) 02:06, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

You have not provided an adequate link to the place where you "posted a note". Does it actually exist? --Taivo (talk) 03:51, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

BLOCK WARNING

This is ridiculous. I will block the next one of you (Medeis and David) who reverts. Work it out on talk like civilized people. — kwami (talk) 03:54, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Is the article exclusively about the term in its narrowest sense in historical linguistics?

I've followed some of the back-channel conversations about the issue (that is, stuff on talk-pages other than the article's), and I think I have at least partially diagnosed the problem here -- the reference to "linguistics articles" and the determination to get this one "rated" as such [20] clarifies things for me somewhat -- there's been a decision, it appears, that this is an article within "x" sphere or project, and so it can't include discussion of the subject from any other methodological perspective; evidence from any other discipline is ruled irrelevant ahead of time.

First, I don't think that's how project designations are meant to work. Second, it seems to me both arbitrary and circular -- the fact that it's about linguistics means that the folklore term can't be part of it; the fact that folklore isn't discussed means it's about linguistics exclusively. That is the only reason I can see for excluding WP:RS's in folklore -- and I have repeatedly asked for justification of that exclusion. All it takes is a few senior people in the field saying "nobody takes (Snopes, Jan Harold Brunvand, JAF, Western Folklore) seriously." I could as easily deny the validity of the linguistics sources here (I wouldn't do anything so WP:Pointy, because I know these to be very important sources in linguistics). It also explains the steady non-response to my repeatedly pointing out that the term's status within historical linguistics is in no way diminished by acknowledging its status, with closely related meaning, in folklore. I still have had no response to that; it's arbitrary denial of well-documented fact.

So if I'm correct -- it's about drawing boundaries-- well, that's not entirely inappropriate to an encyclopedia article in principle, but as a motive, it hasn't been explicit (because perhaps not entirely conscious?). So maybe we can get consensus (or failing that, an administrative ruling) on that particular question: is there a prior determination that this particular article is about, and can only be about linguistics? I don't think that's a good idea, but it seems to be the operating assumption behind this diff [21] immediately after the re-identification of the article. I certainly would not have supported the migration had I known the plan was immediately to confer ownership of the term and article to a single disciplinary perspective.

But if we come to such a ruling, we need two separate articles, I guess, Folk etymology (historical linguistics and Folk etymology (folklore). That's a proposal. although I don't myself support it. As I've said -- multiple times -- I think that's sub-optimal from the point of view of users, because keeping them together reveals the overlap of the same term as used in two very closely allied fields (plenty of linguists also identify as folklorists and vice-versa; there's a reason for that). Now, the natural history of wikipedia articles is for them to undergo fission when separate subsections reach a certain size, but we're a long way from that point here. DavidOaks (talk) 13:37, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

We have provided quite sufficient proof from reliable sources here that "folk etymology" is a precisely-defined technical term in linguistics (not just "historical linguistics"). As of this point, there is no proof from reliable sources that "folk etymology" is a precisely-defined technical term in folklore. Once there is actual evidence that "folk etymology" is a technical term in folklore, then we can have a discussion about whether to incorporate that definition into this article or create a separate article. --Taivo (talk) 14:01, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
Excellent! Maybe now we're getting somewhere -- you folks have been working from an incomplete syllogism: "This article is about technical terms with discrete definitions" "You have not brought forward a discrete definition" "therefore your material does not belong" You were not explicit about the first term, and I most sincerely was unaware of its existence and operation in your thinking. Happens all the time, where something is considered self-evident on one side, and another is entirely unaware of and not on board with the unstated assumption; explains an awful lot of missed communication.
Well, the proposition that this article is exclusively about technically defined terms requires an administrative ruling, because it has pretty significant policy implications (we will need to create a tag, and we will need to hang it on a great many articles) I certainly provided ample evidence that the term is in circulation among the most senior folklorists, and used as meaningful within reliable publications. Rejecting that evidence, I continue to think, is a bad approach to encyclopedia-making (it's unsound linguistic methodology as well). Again, it sounds like what you want is separate articles for Folk etymology (linguistics) and Folk etymology (folklore) You didn't respond to that. I still think it's a bad approach to dealing with a term of divided usage. DavidOaks (talk) 14:15, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
There is a difference between a phrase and a concept. To give a bad example off the top of my head, you wouldn't have an article "high pressure" which dealt with the well defined medical concept of hypertension, and the colloquial phrases "high pressure sales pitch" and "high pressure job" all in one article.
Folk etymology is not just a phrase in historical linguistics. It is a well defined concept. It is a translation of Volksetymologie from the German, a single word for a specific concept, not the phrase volkische Etymologie. The concept involved refers to the change in form caused by the influence of vulgar opinion. The meaning is quite distinct from just a false or popular belief regarding word origins. The word (or at least the idea of) change is explicit in all of Kwami's references above, as well as mine. It would have been better, perhaps, if the hyphenated form folk-etymology had been adapted, that would have made the fact that the term is a single concept with a special meaning and not just a phrase with the plain meaning of the separate words more evident to the casual reader. But wikipedia has to follow scholarly usage.
In any case, the fact remains that Wikipedia primarily has articles about specific concepts and things, not necessarily about phrases as such. 'Folk etymology' in the linguistic sense is a well established concept with its own definition, and is not the same as false etymology or popular etymology or so forth - while the sense that you are interested in, David, is indeed a mere phrase, and a subject that falls much more naturally under false etymology or backronym or urban legend, etc., which matches the sources you present. Were there the same sort and number of sources within folklore defining folk etymology as a well defined concept, you might have an argument for disambiguation. But that is not the case, and even if it were, you would still have to create a separate article. The solution is for you to put your material in a separate article (again, I suggest false etymology) and to put a redirect at the top of this article saying "for popular myths about the origins of words, see false etymology".μηδείς (talk) 15:27, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
Actually, you've provided no reliable sources to support the assertion that "folk etymology" is a technical term in use among folklorists. You cite "JAF" as a source above, but that is a journal with a publication run that stretches back into the early 20th century. That's not a source, that's simply an assertion. "Western Folklore" is the same thing--it's a journal with a long history of publication. Your other two sources are simply web sites--not reliable sources. You need to provide a reliable source with at least a minimum level of verifiability. "JAF" does not pass muster as a reliable source without a volume and page number where "folk etymology" is defined in the sense you say it has in folklore studies. That doesn't require an "administrative ruling", that requires reliable sources. --Taivo (talk) 15:22, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
Gave the full citations, please go back and read them; the issue on first inclusion was a matter of content, on the most recent mention, merely reliability (hence bare titles), and those two journals rank highly. Same for Brunvand, his encyclopedia, his textbook. What website are you objecting to, Snopes? It's respected; I documented that, though it was entirely supplementary -- the case is solid without it. Other websites were adduced as evidence of current usage; any linguist would regard them as conclusive for that purpose. You're not relating claim-type to evidence; there's a variety in play here. I confess to being surprised at the difficulty in getting that distinction across. Now, we really need that policy statement, and I am trying to formulate it in such a way that the burden is reasonably low for your side -- all we need is an admin ruling or existing policy that says discrete definitions are the first step b efore any material can be included in (any? a given?) article (which?).DavidOaks (talk) 16:11, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
I acknowledge that your example is top-of-the-head; it's not really apt -- "high pressure" is indeed a general term; is "folk etymology" in use in as many other fields? With usage as closely related? On the same subject matter? Is anybody trying to include discussions of artificial gem production in Hypertension? Do hydraulic engineers and specialists in cardiovascular disease appear at the same conferences, publish in the same journals (PMLA, JEGP, MP), cite each other, share a disciplinary pedigree? Here we really have only two, closely related disciplines, and the usages are historically connected and overlapping in the present (in part because the scholarly communities overlap; Don Lance and Peter Tamony both used this term in both linguistic and folkloric senses in public addresses).
"False etymology" is too broad a term for the folkloric usage (as you correctly observed is the case for leaving the present article there) and sending it to Backronym assigns an entire phenomenon to a single type of example (you wouldn't want to send the present article to onomastic mistakes; this suggestion has been made a number of times, so I'm forced to conclude that there's some really basic stuff about folklore and backronyms that linguists, or at least the present group, doesn't grasp. Or maybe it's simply a failure to seriously engage the question. Feels that way to me. Feels like WP:Own.
I think the folkloric understanding belongs here because this is where people would look for it; that seems to me a commonsense approach to editing under encyclopedic purposes. But we must work the process. Is there a canon, perhaps yet to be articulated but in operation, that a discrete definition is required for the inclusion of any material into a given article? This must be answered. If so, how are those articles currently identified, or if the policy is new, how shall we identify them? This is what I meant earlier about making authoritative distinctions without authority -- I am unaware of any such policy as what you're operating under. If an admin can lay it down, cool -- but then it really IS policy, and we're going to have to live with it and make major changes throughout the project. I think the damage this will do to this particular article, from users' point of view, is evidence of the non-existence of such a policy and an argument against creating one. But if admins rule that there is such a policy, so be it. Policy is what you need when two sides think they're arguing from common sense, but the sense is not held in common, as seems to be the case here. DavidOaks (talk) 16:01, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
Repeating arguments is pointless. Just provide sources with verbatim quotes.μηδείς (talk) 16:12, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
There, we agree. See supra. This is wearisome, but important. At a local level, all I'm doing is demonstrating that a closely allied field uses the same term to describe different aspects of the same phenomena, and the claim is more than adequately documented, and I really am surprised that it's controversial. At a level that has much broader implicaitons, it would seem to me obvious that an article that did NOT document the range of usage of a term would be defective. We're certainly not going to get a ruling that says we are forbidden to discuss or document the range of meaning and usage of a term, but I sense that's what you're seeking, or at least it's what you're acting on, and that's why we require authoritative intervention. DavidOaks (talk) 16:36, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
Well, now that we know what the magic word is, here we go: "Folk etymologies are stories, often quite brief, that purport to explain the origin of a word through reference to the linguistic form of the word itself. […] (South Asian folklore: an encyclopedia. Peter J. Claus, Sarah Diamond, Margaret Ann Mills. Taylor & Francis 2003. Deborah Winslow sv “Folk Etymologies” 204-5.[22].
It really was quite easy, once it became clear what the tacit canon was. I am complying, but I would not have that taken to mean I affirm the presumed policy -- those policy questions still need addressing.
Since this settles things according to the standards invented or at least applied here, I assume there are no further objections to restoring the complete version? DavidOaks (talk) 17:00, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Now that you have provided a single source, we can begin a discussion of whether this should be contained within the article on the technical linguistic term or separated out. You have not built a consensus for inclusion yet, you have simply provided one source. Since we have dozens of sources illustrating the term in linguistics, then the article should stay as it is until a consensus is reached on how much weight to put on a minor folkloric term. --Taivo (talk) 17:17, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

You're moving the goalposts. I hesitate to say "again," because charity suggests you were not conscious of the previous obstacle y'all were imposing. If you think the folklore material should not be included, give a fresh reason, since I've met the other tests, but be aware that at some point it really begins to look like WP:OWN and WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT.
But you said a SINGLE instance? Okeydoke. Here's ANOTHER encyclopedia, and the topic is dysphemism (linguistics) -- interesting.
“[…]Folk etymology is the phenomenon whereby plausible but factually inaccurate explanations develop, often accompanied by a corroborating tall story.” An encyclopedia of swearing: the social history of oaths, profanity, foul language, and ethnic slurs in the English-speaking world. Geoffrey Hughes. Sv “Folk etymology;” pp 177-78; he cites Eisiminger, as did I. So linguists use the folklorist's sense, consider it definitive. As I say, interesting.
Lest I hear "single source" again, here's another -- not a definition, but an especially interesting example of usage (merely for illustrative purposes, of course) --but the usage of the term clearly applies to fact claims/narratives (which is what folklorists use) rather than morphological re-analysis -- and this too is in a linguistics publication: Search this linguistics newsletter[23] for “folk etymology” – you’ll find the folklorist’s usage of a fact-claim.
I do believe we've finished here.DavidOaks (talk) 17:49, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

proposed new intro

The following captures both usages and represents the true state of the term; where this ends, we continue with the current article at the point "Folk etymology as a productive force"

Folk etymology, in its basic sense, refers to popularly held (and often false) beliefs about the origins of specific words and phrases, especially where these originate in "common-sense" assumptions and the construction of ex post facto narratives rather than serious research (compare folk science, folk psychology etc.).

The phenomenon leads to distinct but related usages for the phrase in historical linguistics and in folklore.

Jan Harold Brunvand defines the two usages thus: “A process by which people either (1) mispronounce or change pronunciations of foreign or strange-sounding words to make them similar to, or compatible phonologically with, other words in their lexicons, or (2) explain from hearsay evidence how particular words originated.”[6]

In linguistics, the term is used exclusively for a change in the pronunciation, meaning, or spelling of a word[7] under the influence of such folk beliefs about its origins.[8] Linguists who have specified the meaning of the term "folk" in this case mean by it "amateurs" or "non-linguists."[9] The usage is established, though some writers defend their technical usage against use of the terms in their commensense meaning of "amateur etymology"[10] and some contemporary scholars acknowledge the incorrectness of the term for the phenomenon more precisely described as "morphological re-analysis."[11] Folklorists regularly use the term [12] for a sometimes fanciful claim, often in narrative form, about the origins of a given word or phrase.

Source and influence of false etymologies

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, for example, were plausible given the insights available at the time, but have often been rejected by modern linguists. The etymologies of humanist scholars in the early modern period began to produce more reliable results, but many of their hypotheses have been superseded. Even today, knowledge in the field advances so rapidly that many of the etymologies in contemporary dictionaries are outdated.

Association with urban legends

Some etymologies are part of urban legends, and seem to respond to a general taste for the surprising, counterintuitive and even scandalous. One common example has to do with the phrase rule of thumb, meaning a rough measurement. 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 (though no such law ever existed).[13]

In the United States, many of these scandalous legends have had to do with racism and slavery. Common words such as picnic,[14] buck,[15] and crowbar[16] 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. On one occasion, the use of the word niggardly led to the resignation of a U.S. public official because it sounded similar to the word nigger, despite the two words being unrelated etymologically.[17]

— Preceding unsigned comment added by DavidOaks (talk • contribs) 01:13, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Evidence the folklorist's usage is consistent and widespread among the social sciences, and that the linguist's usage is shaky even among linguists

Here’s more evidence that linguists’ toleration for and even active use of the folklorist’s sense is quite unremarkable: stringsearch the term at the American Dialect Society for “folk etymologies” and you’ll find these linguists talking like folklorists, with nary a complaint from nobody.[24] Here[25] they go again, this time explicitly citing folklore journals, without any snarkiness about having their property trespassed-upon. That is, the core, initial claim, that the usage is exclusive, is not looking sustainable even within the core group. At best, it’s historical – the logocentric argument about Volksetymologie should be approached with caution; “Volk” has reverberations in German that “folk” utterly lacks in English; I find it unsavory, but twenty years ago at least German universities still talked about the Indogermanistik, and couldn’t whiff the reek of the Aryan delusion that did so much harm, as I did. There are also really important instances of the folklorist’s sense being used in other areas of the social sciences:

In “The Curse of Ham: A Case of Rabbinic Racism?” (in Struggles in the Promised Land, ed. Jack Salzman and Cornel West (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997) 21-51, David M. Goldenberg explicitly uses the term in BOTH senses, talking about the etymology of “Ham” as morphological re-analysis and “Moses” as derived from the story of his sojourn among the bullrushers.

Here’s an anthropologist: “These folk etymologies are at the same time explanations for the names of sacred stones and other objects which stood in the named villages as external signs of the political order created by Milad[…]” (MYTHOLOGICAL METAPHORS AND HISTORICAL REALITIES: Models of Transformation of Belauan Polity R. J. Parmentier Journal of the Polynesian Society, Volume 95 1986 > Volume 95, No. 2 >, p 167-194 )

And a psychologist, and editor of her field’s journal: “Like many folk etymologies, the commonly understood origin of "rule of thumb" seems to have some inaccuracy. The Oxford English Dictionary indicates that the phrase has been used for about 300 years to refer to measurements that are based on experience instead of exact science. However, some people currently believe that the phrase "rule of thumb" originated from English common law, and that the phrase reflects a law which allowed a husband to beat his wife with a whip or stick no bigger in diameter than his thumb.” (“Commentary: Domestic Violence, Folk Etymologies, & ‘Rule of Thumb’” Jennifer Freyd and JQ Johnson. U-Oregon academic paper online, 1998 (http://dynamic.uoregon.edu/~jjf/essays/ruleofthumb.html)

Now you did look in Brunvand’s American Folklore: An Encyclopedia? He lists both definitions: “A process by which people either 1) mispronounce or change pronunciations of foreign or strange-sounding words to make them similar to, or compatible phonologically with, other words in their lexicons, or (2) explain from hearsay evidence how particular words originated.”

I would quibble to add spelling to the first def and phrases to the second, but this most authoritative of sources is acknowledging both usages – and I think I have documented that scholars in many disciplines regular use both. I think I have documented as well that the linguistic usage is restricted to linguists, and has been discredited even there by at least one, but I do not for that reason recommend exporting the content to Folk etymology (linguistic sense), once again because THIS is where users expect to find it.

It is time to revert.DavidOaks (talk)

You need to understand the meaning of "consensus", Mr. Oaks. Consensus doesn't mean "I say so". Right now, there is a consensus toward not including the information here, but that might change once kwami and medeis post their views. Without a consensus, you cannot revert. At this point, you have only established that folklorists have used "folk etymology" in the same sense as "false etymology". Your attempt to discredit the linguistic definition fails because you have used in this section several sources that are not linguists. Indeed, if you look at the standard dictionaries of linguistic terminology that Kwami cited above, it is crystal clear what the linguistic definitions of "folk etymology" are and that they are consistent. One or two linguists, whose primary work may (or may not) actually be in linguistics, do not invalidate the crystal clear definitions that are provided in the standard dictionaries. I've misused a technical term or two in my own linguistic publishing career, although not intentionally. So there still needs to be a discussion on the proper placement of folklore's definition of "folk etymology". If you have a suggested paragraph to add, then I suggest you post it here for discussion and building consensus. I think it should be in a different place because one of the functions of an encyclopedia is to clearly define things. Since the folklore definition (the word affects the false etymology) is directionally the opposite of the linguistic definition (the word is affected by the false etymology), then they should be separated to avoid confusion. --Taivo (talk) 19:24, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
Taivo, first: I had to undo your change of my post. Unless you're intervening on a libel or WP:BLP issue, or rv'ing obvious vandalism, it's never appropriate. Now, folklorists do NOT use the term in the sense of "false etymology." Read the definitions. I really don't feel you're engaging in good faith discussion when you keep repeating these assertions after correction. Ditto the matter of the irrelevance of a competing definition from folklore to the integrity of the established definition in linguistics. If you really don't understand, just say so, and we can open a sub-thread. Next, review the note about the relation of evidence to claim. I showed that linguists sometimes use the folklorist's definition. That means that the claims of exclusivity are shaky. No attempt has been made at any time to discredit the established definition. Consensus has to be rooted in policy and argument; otherwise it's merely WP:OWN -- and edit-warring. My suggested revision is to undo the last indiscriminate, massreversion and get our sources neatened up. But if you don't like that, we could start with Brunvand's definition and develop two subsections. DavidOaks (talk) 19:40, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I was just going to reply above that it looks like we have some relevant sources here, and there you post another false reference. I do wonder about how sloppy your references are, David. Your first link above only uses the term in its historical-change sense, and distinguishes "folk explanation" for your broader sense. In your second link, a blog poster does use it in the broader sense.
So what do we have here? Are there two technical senses of the term, or is there only loose application of a technical term where it isn't strictly applicable?
It appears to me (by no means knowledgeable on the topic) that we have a technical term with a specific meaning, but which is, at least occasionally, used with a broader application. The narrow def is only called "folk etymology", and is the prototypical use of that term, whereas the broader may be called "folk explanation", "false etymology", or any of several other often ad hoc phrases.
Terms like force and energy have specific technical definitions, but are also broadly and loosely applied. Our articles, however, restrict themselves to the technical definitions, and don't cover 'forceful personalities' and 'positive energy'. So even if "folk etymology" is widely used in your loose sense, that hardly means we need to cover it here, other than perhaps to say, "Folk etymology is sometimes also used more broadly to mean folk explanation or false etymology", and then link to any article covering those topics. Your evidence is actually starting to disconvince me of your argument. — kwami (talk) 19:30, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
If you will look below, you will see numerous instances of linguists, in peer-reviewed publications for other linguists, asserting that "folk etymology" is a synonym for "popular etymology." The claim that the narrow def is only used for "folk etymology" is definitively disproved. DavidOaks (talk) 04:31, 13 November 2010 (UTC)::Gave you more than enough sources; quality, quantity, you got it all. Could give you lots more. But I can see that's not getting anywhere. The goalposts are definiteloy in motion. And you don't seem to have read the explanation of why Medeis' "pressure" example was inapt. Nor has anyone addressed the proposal for separate articles on linguistics and folklore. I think it's a bad idea, and gave my reasons, but these things are not addressed. Dang, I was really sensing progress. OK, let's get that ruling -- "OUR(?!!) articles restrict themselves..." needs admin action; I know of no wikipolicy such as you are enforcing. DavidOaks (talk) 19:49, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
Presumably you're looking at the two links to ADS? Do look through the instances of the term; you'll find it used to explain Hoosier as "whose ear?" a reference to frontier fighting -- that's not re-analysis, it's the folklore sense. Used by a linguist. Who's sloppy? This is tag-teaming and it's unfair. This is why I posted a notice. DavidOaks (talk) 20:06, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
It's called a "discussion". That is fair. If you think discussion is the same as conspiracy, we're not going to be very productive here. — kwami (talk) 22:30, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
Apparently you did not read my post all the way to the end, Mr. Oaks. At the end I specifically wrote why I would prefer two articles over one. Read the last sentence or two. Your subsection title is also not a part of your "contribution". It's just WP:POINTy and not even accurate. I changed it as a courtesy to you so that you could at least not alienate linguists with your subheading. But if you want to alienate the linguists here, then be my guest, I won't remove your inflammatory heading again if you want it there. There is no tag-teaming going on unless you think that you are always being tag-teamed when more people disagree with you than agree. And I fail to see why you think "false etymology" is incorrect. The etymologies of false etymologies are false. Surely you aren't going to argue that they are not false. --Taivo (talk) 23:38, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
Don't know if there are any linguists here; none have self-identified as such. It's late to worry about alienating those who think the article is under some policy to exclude anything not within a narrow definition of linguistics, and anyhow, if that inflames them, so be it. If the folklorist's use of "folk etymology" defined and exemplified, is merely a subset of false etymology, the same necessarily applies to the linguist's definition, since at your insistence, both have been given multiple examples of formal definition and authoritative usage going back a long time. Unless there's some sort of "dibs" wikipolicy that says earliest usage, however inapt, trumps.
Options: We can (1) move the whole thing back to False etymology and have two subsections; we can (2) set up separate articles for Folk etymology (linguistics) and False etymology (folklore). I have already said multiple times I think both represent bad service to users of an encyclopedia. We can (3) incorporate the two well-defined and well-attested definitions from two related disciplines here, leading off with Brunvand's definition, which is authoritative and embraces both.
I'll take what's behind door #3, Monty. But tell me which of these three you like best. Reserving this article for the linguistic sense requires an admin ruling -- a new one, since the canons have changed once again, apparently -- that this is a linguistics article and no other information perspectives, definitions or sources are allowed. It would be the first such decision in my experience.DavidOaks (talk) 00:42, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
No, it doesn't require an admin ruling--it is, as with all things in Wikipedia, based on consensus. You have been unable to build a consensus for your point of view--no admin is going to override consensus to push your individual opinion. If you can't build consensus on something, then you aren't going to get your way in any other manner. --Taivo (talk) 04:05, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

No

I am dismayed at the plethora of new sections, unsigned, above.

My short answer? No.

The term "folk etymology" would never even have entered English if it weren't a loan translation of the German linguistic concept of Volksetymologie. Again, this is not the same as voelkische Etymologie. Asserting that the "basic meaning is such and such would require significant reliable sources that actually say such, and if they did exist, they would at best justify a separate article. No one is standing in the way of the creation of such an article. The edit warring here is extremely counter productive, and I don't intend to keep repeating myself. The sources, the rationale, and the consensus are lacking. In other wordss, no.μηδείς (talk) 01:44, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Sure we could tweak that language, even build it out of tagged quotes if you like, or just lead with Brunvand's quote -- although that really is pretty generally regarded as bad practice for leads. I wouldn't like it, stylistically, but if that's the only thing that will satisfy, I can compromise. The rest of your response -- well, is it that the linguistic sense existed earlier, at least in another language? I don't think that's a reason for excluding well-documented definition and scholarly usage. Again, it's some kind of principle that seems to you to be established, but the rest of us are really going to have to see it documented as wikipractice. Now we've got a well-sourced quote that combines the two. You're not addressing that. DavidOaks (talk) 01:59, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
At this point, even if I thought you had adequate sources to prove that "folk etymology" is a technical term in folklore, your version of a lead is unacceptable because you have written a mishmash of definitions without clearly delineating that X is the definition in linguistics and Y is the definition in folklore. Even the paragraph where you tried to write the linguistic definition, which in the real world of linguistics is clear, precise, and well-understood by linguists, is a mess and ends up talking about your asserted meaning in folklore anyway. You clearly still don't seem to understand that "folk etymology" is a very precise and clearly-defined technical term in linguistics. You tried to define it, but then quickly slipped off into murky and meaningless qualifications of the term. Sorry, but that lead is unacceptable. I suggest you begin a new article on "false etymologies". --Taivo (talk) 04:14, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
Still waiting for some constructive suggestions on how to improve the "mishmash" -- can't really work with that, need specific suggestions on what you would like improved so as to represent the actual state of usage at present. There really is no longer a case to be made that the usage is exclusively that recognized by linguistic dictionaries and not observed with any particular strictness either by the educated public or by working linguists. Gave a lot of illustrations, below. DavidOaks (talk) 02:18, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
Excellent. You have suggestions for improvements? By all means, let's post the paragraph and you go right ahead and adjust the definition as you think needful. The division is quite clear. I assert nothing; I provide the verbatim definition of Brunvand. This is obstruction, not discussion. DavidOaks (talk) 04:41, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
Because things really show no prospect of coming unstuck, I've entered an RfC. DavidOaks (talk) 05:03, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
Besides being an inaccurate description of the positions here, you inserted the your RfC in the middle of an existing thread. I am getting quite tired of your endless personal accusations and inappropriate behavior. Edit warring does not only consist of multiple reverts. Keep your remarks civil and impersonal, and be careful with your edits, or I will file a formal complaint.μηδείς (talk) 05:21, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
I placed the template at the start of the relevant section, according to instructions and examples. If you want it here, I reckon that's fine, but you're accusing others of incivility? This[26] is only one of many instances demonstrating yours. If you see evidence of incivility or inaccuracy in the description I gave of the situation, please offer correction. I strove for simplicity and neutrality. If I made any personal accusations, please point them out to me -- I would be eager for the opportunity to apologize. But I would actually welcome the filing of a formal complaint. In fact, I strongly encourage you to do it, if you feel you have grounds. DavidOaks (talk) 06:09, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

RfC -- Linguistics and Folklore

One side wants the term reserved exclusively for linguistics, the other sees parallel and related usages; neither thinks that there should be separate articles specifying usages as restricted to disciplines (i.e, Folk etymology (linguistics) and Folk etymology (folklore) Discussion has been long and shows no sign of resolution DavidOaks (talk) 05:02, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

This statement of the issue is partially false. There certainly are those who think that there should be separate articles for linguistics and folklore, so the statement that "neither thinks that there should be separate articles" is absolutely false. --Taivo (talk) 06:34, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
My impression was that you wanted that material on the linguistic sense of the term to remain at False etymology. Please confirm that you wish it moved to False etymology (linguistics). If so, I do indeed stand corrected, and cheerfully (though I don't think it's a good idea). If not, my description is accurate. DavidOaks (talk) 07:25, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
People, deleting the title for the RfC is interfering with a process in which others must participate, and when you've been warned about it once, it's simple harassment. You have been told twice to suggest an alternative. I think it's quite accurate as to what the dispute is, but I'm willing to entertain alternative definitions. DavidOaks (talk) 07:40, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
Mr Oaks, you have completely misrepresented my points above. 1) I never advocated moving the linguistic definition, which is a precise linguistic definition to "false etymology". I support moving the folklore definition elsewhere. 2) I have never advocated using the term "false etymology" for the linguistic definition since that is completely unattested in the linguistic literature. The linguistic term is "folk etymology". RfCs are supposed to be neutrally presented. Your title is not neutral. RfCs either have a simple neutral title or no title at all except "RfC". The title which you originally placed here was neither neutral nor even the topic of this RfC. The topic of this RfC is whether this article is about just linguistics or includes the definitions that you claim for folklore. The title which you put there is about sources. The question you asked is not about sources, but about splitting this article or including other information. The title, if it is more than just "RfC" should actually reflect the wording of the request. --Taivo (talk) 11:24, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
Didn't misrepresent your position. Queried to make you declare it. You want an article on "folk etymology" to be about folk etymology in its lingustic sense. You think folk etymology in its folkloric sense can go anywhere else but there. But you were incensed at my saying neither side is willing to have separate articles where the titles specify the discipline -- I, because I think they belong together, you because you think only the linguistic sense is prooperly called "folk etymology." Now, in order to make this asymmetry reasonable, you need really reliable sources for that acknowledge both senses and declare that only one is correct; it would have to be a source that explicitly acknowledges the folkloric sense, and it has to be one above any particular discipline. This will be difficult, I grant. The whole disagreement is absurd, and it puts us to absurd tasks. DavidOaks (talk) 03:49, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
My position has been very clear and you have continually twisted it to suit your purpose. This article is the linguistic sense. As this is the only sense found in the OED and other sources which Kwami has cited, it is clear. The usage of "folk etymology" in folklore literature is not at all consistent. We have multiple linguistic reference sources that cite the linguistic meaning as the only meaning. You have only a small number of references from folklore that use the folklore meaning associated with the phrase "folk etymology". This article is the proper place for the proper linguistic definition, which is the only one cited in the OED. --Taivo (talk) 04:02, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

(outdent)"This article is in the linguistic sense" and yet you object to having it labelled Folk etymology (linguistics) Puzzling. But you want another, thoroughly documented sense excluded. Also unclear. Did the OED acknowledge competing senses and explicitly exclude them? I don't think physicists use it to settle arguments about terminology in their discipline. We have multiple folklore references that cite folkloric sense as the only meaning -- it's just these deficiencies that need remedy, and Brunvand is a reliable source that does exactly that. I know what I want an encyclopedia to do -- and it's not concealing information about the current state of a term. DavidOaks (talk) 04:19, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Sorry -- lapsus...well, not calami...correcting: so, you would be satisfied with moving the linguistic material to Folk etymology (linguistics)? If that's so, your complaint is correct. If not, then my description in the RfC is accurate. Now the four of us have had our ample say; I suggest we tend to things other than this particular section and let others review the discussion from its beginning DavidOaks (talk) 12:38, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
  • comment Here's how I see it: (a) We half a well-attested linguistic use of the term "folk etymology", one of lexical change based on a false etymology/folk explanation. This is the only definition given in the OED and other non-technical dictionaries, from which I conclude that it is the primary use of the term. I would prefer keeping this article restricted to that topic, with a hatnote to dab a second article for the next usage.
    (b) There would also appear to be a phrase "folk etymology", not a set expression but a phrase analogous to several others such as "folk explanation", "false etymology", and the like, which does not imply historical change. (It may also be that some authors' use of the technical term is mistaken or sloppy, just as instances of force and energy are often sloppy even when uttered by scientists; it's hard to tell from the sources.)
    (c) Several of David's sources, many of which in any case are not RSs, do not say what he claims they do, so I haven't bothered to read them all, but some of them do. However, one of his sources distinguishes "folk etymology", involving lexical change, from "folk explanation", which does not. I would suggest keeping the precisely defined concept here under its name, just as we do with force and energy, and moving the less well-defined concept to one of its other numerous names, perhaps false etymology.
    (d) This article had been under that name, and was moved because this is the technically more correct title. However, it is only more technically correct for its technical definition. Other looser meanings should remain where they were. That is, IMO the move should have been a split. — kwami (talk) 13:03, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
    • comment It's OK not to read sources, but evaluate them...well, it explains much of what has happened here. The only sources you need to evaluate at the present state of locked editing are these; they establish that the term "Folk etymology" has a defined meaning in folklore.[d 1][d 2][d 3] Here on the talkpage, I provided numerous instances of usage which show that the true state of this term is that it is indeed defined in linguistics, and that it has a distinct but related usage in the distinct but related field of folklore; the sources also show that linguists themselves regularly and without comment use the term in the non-linguist's sense, both in professional discussion-groups and in publications. Those instances make it clear that the term does not have the exclusivity of usage which has been claimed for it. The juried publication where a linguist specifically decries the term as inadequate is also significant. But do note that these sources were offered to illustrate and document the discussion here on the talkpage, never intended for inclusion ultimately in the article. IMO, a single article with subsections on the two meanings represents the true state of the term and best serves users of the encyclopedia. Separate articles Folk etymology (linguistics) and Folk etymology (folklore) would have logic, but would not reveal the interrelatedness of the terms, and would not be the way the typical user would search. Restricting this article to linguistics and sending the identical term to a separate page Folk etymology (folklore) would be a serious distortion, and fails on logical grounds. About all it has in its favor is that the linguistic usage is prior, based on a loan-translation of an early 19th c. German term. Two articles about the same technical term in two disciplines -- one of them identified per discipline, one not? That'll confuse readers. DavidOaks (talk) 13:38, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
  1. ^ Brunvand, Jan Harold. “A process by which people either (1) mispronounce or change pronunciations of foreign or strange-sounding words to make them similar to, or compatible phonologically with, other words in their lexicons, or (2) explain from hearsay evidence how particular words originated.”American Folklore: An Encyclopedia. NY: Garland Reference Library of the Humanities
  2. ^ "Folk etymologies are stories, often quite brief, that purport to explain the origin of a word through reference to the linguistic form of the word itself. […] (South Asian folklore: an encyclopedia. Peter J. Claus, Sarah Diamond, Margare t Ann Mills. Taylor & Francis 2003. Deborah Winslow sv “Folk Etymologies” 204-5
  3. ^ “[…]Folk etymology is the phenomenon whereby plausible but factually inaccurate explanations develop, often accompanied by a corroborating tall story.” An encyclopedia of swearing: the social history of oaths, profanity, foul language, and ethnic slurs in the English-speaking world. Geoffrey Hughes. sv “Folk etymology;” pp 177-78
I edited your post to make your refs visible.
Meaning (1) in your first ref is the technical sense. It's the only sense found in the OED and MW. Meaning (2) goes by several other names. Having it under a semantically transparent name like 'false etymology' will not be the slightest bit confusing. — kwami (talk) 14:10, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
DavidOaks, you have again misrepresented my position. I have never advocated moving the precise linguistic definition away from where it is right now. I have only advocated that if you want to talk about false/folk etymologies in a folkloric sense, then you should start a new article. As Kwami has clearly stated--the first and foremost definition of "folk etymology" is the linguistic one, which is precise and very consistently used in linguistics to describe lexical change based on false etymologies. "Folk etymology" is neither a consistently used nor regularly defined folkloric technical term but, just one of several options for describing false etymologies. --Taivo (talk) 14:30, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
But the refs make it clear that the usage is current in folklore. Going way back to the beginning of the discussion, what you do not have is a ref that says the folkloric understanding is specifically excluded. You certainly have refs even from linguistics sources that acknowledcge multiple senses while sort of vaguely excluding them. An encyclopedia would not slavishly adhere to a single disciplinary view, especially one that demonstrates itself to be on the defensive. The solution is to have a ssingle article that treats both senses and the relations between them. DavidOaks (talk) 03:49, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
No, your refs only show that some folklore sources use this phrase in the meaning you assert. You have cited only three folklore reference works that uses the phrase in the meaning you attest. Folklore usage is an order of magnitude less precise than the usage and definition of "folk etymology" in linguistics. When a term has a very precise meaning in a field, that is the term that needs to be defined in an article. Fringe or secondary meanings should be relegated to subordinate articles or articles with different titles. "False etymology" would be a better place to put the folklore usage since the terms are not consistently used in folklore literature. This article is about the most precise definition of the term--the only one cited in the OED--the linguistic one. --Taivo (talk) 04:02, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Passed my laptop around the bar at a conference. The other linguists think it's funny that anyone wants to defend this boundary, and with such energy (though honesty compels me to report that their primary usage, and their assumption when they hear the phrase, is to treat it as you do -- but then, they're linguists). I could not get them to take a position, beyond something on the order of "whatever." Some folklorists arrived. Further conversation failed to generate much territoriality, but there was consensus that the whole thing's pretty silly. We had more beer. Nice folks, pleasant conversation. Since these commentators are not here, I will repeat what they said and credit it exclusively and therfore non-WP:RSively to myself as repeater -- which I guess makes it folklore(?) and convert it functionally to advice: "Disciplines have a history. Terminolgy undergoes shift. Get used to it." FWIW. I'm going to bed. DavidOaks (talk) 04:21, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Current state of the question; evidence in support of a single article covering both linguistics and folklore

The positions, as I understand them, are as follows (and I sincerely wish correction if I should misrepresent anyone’s views):

On the one hand, three editors want the article folk etymology to treat exclusively the linguistic sense. They have no strong feelings about where the folkloric sense is covered, but they don’t want it here. Their chief argument is that it is a technical term in linguistics (not that there weren’t other arguments, but that seems to me the one that comes up most often). It has been in regular and very precise use for a long time. They reject “false etymology” as too broad and not the specific formulation motivated by the original loan-translation from the German. They’d be ok with a hatnote or a “see also” pointing to wherever the folklore material ends up.

The other view has no disagreement with these claims, but cannot see that they compel the conclusion that the term belongs exclusively to linguistics.

One editor holds that the term is also defined in folklore, that it is used regularly and meaningfully in that discipline, and has been used in that sense for a very long time and by a great many scholars. This view notes that the usages are historically connected, effectively coming at the same phenomenon from different angles, the linguists focusing on morphological reanalysis generated by a false belief as to the origin of a given word, and the folklorists focusing on the beliefs and/or narratives behind a given term; the beliefs and narratives may or may not be accurate, and the term or phrase may or may not represent a reanalysis (for this reason, “false etymology” is not an accurate category). In this view, both senses belong in the article Folk etymology, on the reasoning that users of the encyclopedia would be most likely to look up the single term in the form in which it appears, and they need to be given not merely a single disciplinary treatment of the term, but the relation between the two terms. This view rejects treating the linguistic sense as unmarked, if the folkloric sense is to be assigned Folk etymology (folklore).

Symmetry would make Folk etymology (folklore) and folk etymology (linguistics) acceptable, but the first position rejects giving up the status of unmarked or primary usage for the linguistic sense, and the second because the relations of the two terms get lost.

Now, I have tried to be even-handed in describing the situation, and again, I invite correction of my account. But I do take a view here, and that is that the folkloric sense is indeed solidly established as academic and professional. I simply fail to see that there is any wikipolicy or even compelling logic that differentiates one usage as more “technical” than another, or even granting such, that articles are restricted to “technical” subjects. I have frequently asked for claimed policies to be documented.

Both as evidence of usage, and to give a sense of the task we would be setting ourselves for revising the current state of the language (again, something no reputable linguist would propose), consider the usage of this term on the English Wikipedia itself. As of 11-8-10 /17:30 UTC, “folk etymologies” and “folk etymology” got a combined total of 1724 hits (the first of which is the page we are working on). By a substantial margin, the usage tracks the folklorist’s sense – though the linguistic sense accounts for a nontrivial portion. That is, the usage is indeed divided. Not only that -- it tips strongly towards the folkloric sense. It does not seem an unreasonable inference that the proportion would be similar outside of Wikipedia, at least among the educated who are likely to deploy such a term.

Below I have gathered a good deal of evidence, of three kinds: (1) field encyclopedias; (2) scholarly usage in folklore and in other fields; there simply is no way to deny that folklorists use the term technically and professionally, and always have. Additionally, I assemble evidence of (3) usage of the folklorist’s sense by linguists, as well as instability in their own usage, equations to other terms (which they sometimes use to describe the folklorists’ sense) as indications that the term has long admitted of a fair degree of semantic freeplay.

In light of all this evidence (which really amounts to documenting the obvious), I really don't see how anyone could hold that the term as folklorists use it simply doesn't exist, or that the term belongs in some sense to linguistics. I see the argument as being more about defending the privileged position of linguistics than improving the article. It needs pointing out as well that material on the folkloric sense of the term was present for years (going back to 2006, and much refined and elaborated since) before the recent migration of the article to the present title, and the sudden and unilateral removal of that material represents a big change of longstanding consensus.

(1) We have (thus far, using only what was available online) three field encyclopedias explicitly defining the term as a belief about an etymology (frequently expressed in narrative). None of them specifies that the narrative is always false (which is why the suggestion of making this term a subset of “false etymology” won’t work). For the sake of completeness, I gather them here:

  • A) Brunvand, Jan Harold. “A process by which people either (1) mispronounce or change pronunciations of foreign or strange-sounding words to make them similar to, or compatible phonologically with, other words in their lexicons, or (2) explain from hearsay evidence how particular words originated.”American Folklore: An Encyclopedia. NY: Garland Reference Library of the Humanities
  • B)"Folk etymologies are stories, often quite brief, that purport to explain the origin of a word through reference to the linguistic form of the word itself. […] (South Asian folklore: an encyclopedia. Peter J. Claus, Sarah Diamond, Margare t Ann Mills. Taylor & Francis 2003. Deborah Winslow sv “Folk Etymologies” 204-5
  • C)“[…]Folk etymology is the phenomenon whereby plausible but factually inaccurate explanations develop, often accompanied by a corroborating tall story.” An encyclopedia of swearing: the social history of oaths, profanity, foul language, and ethnic slurs in the English-speaking world. Geoffrey Hughes. sv “Folk etymology;” pp 177-78

(2) Previously, I offered numerous examples of informal usage. I am simply going to state that observation of actual usage is the normal means by which non-prescriptive linguists determine the meaning of a term. I did not and do not offer those instances as WP:RS for a definition, merely talk-page illustration of the fact that the term is in wide circulation in the sense claimed. Below, I offer exclusively juried, refereed, peer-reviewed publications from scholarly journals and presses, establishing that the term has been in this disciplinary usage for a century at least. I have demonstrated that it is also in widespread current use. I have demonstrated that it was used in the standard introductory textbook in the field more than forty years ago. By no means have I exhausted the supply. I have not read each article thoroughly – ars longa – quibble with one, there’s always another. I don’t think the point can be denied.

I have added some citations as well from the allied field of anthropology; I have left out numerous references from peer-reviewed publications in political science, history, even astronomy. Suffice it to say that the term is in wide scholarly circulation in its folkoric sense. I would be very curious if we could find many instances of its linguistic sense outside of linguistics. It wouldn’t tell us much, but the whole question has piqued my interest.

In many cases, the title makes it clear enough; where not, I have given an internal reference.

  • Some Practical Aspects of the Study of Myths JR Swanton - Journal of American Folklore, 1910

“... The first of these is that process which gives rise to many folk-etymologies, explanations of names and things which have nothing to do with their real origin…”

  • The Ghost of Criticism Past DKE Crawford - Folklore, 1996

“... Folk etymologies appear in the discussions of the names for Glastonbury…”

  • The gomer: a figure of American hospital folk speech

V George… - Journal of American Folklore, “Several folk etymologies have been proposed for ‘gomer.’”

  • Rewriting initialisms: folk derivations and linguistic riddles

N Howe - Journal of American Folklore, 1989 “Before discussing folk etymologies for initialisms that circulate as riddles…”

  • Etiological Legends Based on Folk Etymologies of Manding Surnames

JW Johnson - Folklore Forum, 1976 - scholarworks.iu.edu

  • Mummers and Momoeri: A Response C Fees - Folklore, 1989

“... Most folk etymologies are 'too close to be coincidence', but this doesn't make them true, and even if true it doesn't tell us ...”

  • Regionalization: A Rhetorical Strategy S Jones - Journal of the Folklore Institute, 1976

“... In many cases they are legends constructed after the fact, and there are many instances where folk etymologies disagree about the origin of the same ...”

  • Mormon: An Example of Folk Etymology SA Gallacher - Western Folklore, 1949
  • A Nineteenth-Century Incantation of Bulgarian Refugees in Romania E Vrabie - Journal of American Folklore, 1978. “With the enormous increase in the use of acronyms,

acronymic folk etymologies seem bound to ...”

  • Hoodlums and Folk Etymology P Tamony - Western Folklore, 1969

(Primarily a linguist, though linguists and folklorists cross-identify; on p. 46 he uses the term in both senses. On 47, only in the folklorist’s sense – twice.)

  • Folklore in the Kentucky Novel LS Thompson - Midwest Folklore, 1953

“... even in twentieth century Kentucky. ... The frontier novels are full of place name lore, some of it authentic, other based on folk etymologies.”

  • Oral exegesis: local interpretations of a bengali folk deity FJ Korom - Western folklore, 1997 “ ... Dharmaraj's formal name in Goalpara is Baharadihi (baha.radihi). Some folk etymologies of this name circulate in the village…”
  • Place-name legends: An onomastic mythology WFH Nicolaisen - Folklore, 1976

“…has, far too frequently to my mind and with little or no justification, been dismissed by some scholars as mere 'folk-etymology'

Anthropologists (an umbrella group for folklorists and linguists alike):

  • The Mimuna and the Minority Status of Moroccan Jews HE Goldberg - Ethnology, 1978

“... It is therefore unlikely that Einhorn's hypothesis contrib- utes to a sociological or synchronicund erstanding of the festival.6 The term mimuna itself is often the starting point for folk etymologies and explanations of the holiday.”

  • The Legend, Popular Discourse and Local Community: The Case of Assamese Legends K Bhattacharjee - Folklore as discourse

“... said about folk mythologies that myths are reworked, informed and garbled in folk myths; this is true for Indian folk etymologies and legends. ...”

  • Being “Maasai”; Being “People‐of‐Cattle”: Ethnic Shifters in East Africa

JG Galaty - American ethnologist, 1982 “... To define “Maasai” is as easy as pointing out those who are and those who are not; to describe “Maasai” involves explicating a collective value system understood by all and encoded in various folk etymologies of the origin of the term.”

  • Who were the Vai? A Jones - The Journal of African History, 1981 - Cambridge Univ Press

“... First, it contains so many folk-etymologies that one must wonder whether it represents anything more than a clever story-teller's ... “ (possibly references a 1926 source; can’t see whole passage)

(3) Evidence this sense is used by linguists while communicating with other linguists: While the term is established and stable in linguistics, it is easily documented that linguists do use the term to refer to beliefs and narratives as well as to the reanalyzed forms produced in response to those beliefs. Instances were given, above, from professional listservs – where one would think fellow professionals would call one another on sloppy usage, most especially when it is repeated. A linguist would normally find this compelling evidence that the second meaning has indeed penetrated the community of linguists themselves. That’s simply how fieldwork is done (my teacher’s teacher was Kurath). It is also possible to document the usage among linguists even when communicating formally and professionally with other linguists.

Indeed, one of your own examples, from ELL (in addition to the “Zigeuner” observation, graciously noted) seems to me definitely to be in the folklorist’s rather than the linguist’s sense –

  • Sound Symbolism. I E Reay “Folk etymology, sometimes known as popular etymology, occurs when the origin of a word is lost or forgotten and another etymology that seems likely or fitting is substituted in the popular consciousness.”
  • It doesn’t refer to change in form or sense, but to an imagined origin (and a definitely false one, which is not a necessary part of the folklorist’s definition).
  • I’d note too that “folk etymology” is explicitly said to be synonymous with “popular etymology” by both linguistic sources (yours here from ELL: Bauer, Reay, also Andrew L. Sihler) and folklorists (I didn’t flag examples; will you trust me on it? Jurisprudence holds that admissions against interest are reliable). That suggests a further degree of instability for the term, as do the synonyms “morphological reanalysis” (Bauer, again in your source, proposes on the grounds that “folk etymology” is simply inaccurate – Coates calls it “grossly misnamed”) and “analogical reanalysis” (Coates – speaking for myself, I’m not sure it’s precisely the same thing). The claim that the term has watertight semantic boundaries seems simply untenable. But it definitely has exactly two established and specific and above all related scholarly meanings.
  • I bring these forward not so much for their argumentative value; the conventional meaning of the term is entirely secure among linguists, and no one has questioned that at any point in this discussion. Really, I have begun to find the question we are working on here itself an interesting linguistic inquiry; I wish we weren’t all (I include myself) so interested in winning the point that we lose sight of what a fascinating process is unfolding here. The cases which I have tagged as ambiguous are the ones that advance my case least and interest me most. There’s a conference paper here for an ambitious undergrad, guaranteed to get her/him lots of attention.
  • The study of the Pennsylvania German dialect O Springer - The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 1943 “[such a study calls for a gathering of] popular traditions and folk etymologies of these names…” “traditions” seems to refer to stories rather than morphological re-analyses. And this guy’s a German linguist – undermines the claim that the loan-translation is what anchors the term’s meaning.
  • The Gaugaz. A Menz

“... Some of these explanations are obvious folk etymologies, and there is no consensus on any of them.” (2008 afro-turkik conference proceedings, Institutionen för lingvistik och filologi: http://www.lingfil.uu.se/)

  • A note on the Navaho word for coyote HJ Landar - International Journal of American Linguistics, 1961 “Native speakers offer no folk etymologies…”
  • Some new light on old jamaicanisms FG Cassidy - American Speech, 1967

In the section on “John Canoe” the phonetic form is treated as provoking the story, not vice-versa, as the linguistic position has it. But I regard it as somewhat ambiguous. “As is the case with folk etymologies, the phonetic form, whatever its origin, demands semantic rationalization.”

Another I find interesting; clearly the author is working with the linguist’s term, but he introduces a distinction: "first order folk etymologies” (I got nothing on that term from google):

Spitten image: Etymythology and fluid dynamics LR Horn - American Speech, 2004 - Duke Univ Press “... Our suspicions are aroused by the fact that while goose-summer and sparrow-grass are indeed first- order simple folk etymologies, the gooseberry has nothing to do with gorse (deriving instead from French groseille)...” DavidOaks (talk) 02:12, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

  1. ^ World Wide Words etymology of "rule of thumb"
  2. ^ Urban Legends reference pages on supposed etymology of picnic
  3. ^ Urban Legends reference pages on supposed etymology of buck
  4. ^ Urban Legends reference pages on supposed origin of crowbar
  5. ^ Article on the etymology of the word niggardly
  6. ^ American Folklore: An Encyclopedia. NY: Garland Reference Library of the Humanities
  7. ^ Sihler, Andrew L. (2000). Language History: an introduction. John Benjamins. pp. 86–88. ISBN 9789027236975.
  8. ^ Sihler, Andrew L. (2000). Language History: an introduction. John Benjamins. p. 20. ISBN 9789027236975.
  9. ^ Preston[27]
  10. ^ "The frequently encountered interpretation of this technical term of historical linguistics in the sense of a mere amateur etymology is itself a wrong conclusion from the word elements. By folk etymology is known always a specific phenomenon of language change, not a merely false etymology." (reference incomplete)
  11. ^ L. Bauer [[28] ]
  12. ^ e.g., S Eisiminger (The Journal of American Folklore Vol. 91, No. 359 (Jan. - Mar., 1978), pp. 582-584;) the narrative associated with a given etymology is called “clever story or pretty fantasy;”
  13. ^ World Wide Words etymology of "rule of thumb"
  14. ^ Urban Legends reference pages on supposed etymology of picnic
  15. ^ Urban Legends reference pages on supposed etymology of buck
  16. ^ Urban Legends reference pages on supposed origin of crowbar
  17. ^ Article on the etymology of the word niggardly
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