A false etymology, sometimes called folk etymology – although the latter term is also a technical term in linguistics – is a popularly held but false belief about the origin or derivation of a specific word. Such etymologies often have the feel of urban legends, and can be much more colorful and fanciful than the typical etymologies found in dictionaries, often involving stories of unusual practices in particular subcultures. Many recent examples are "backronyms", as in snob, and posh for "port outward, starboard homeward"; many other sourced examples are listed in the article on backronyms.
Association with urban legends
Some etymologies are part of urban legends, and seem to respond to a general taste for the surprising, counter-intuitive and even scandalous. One common example has to do with the phraserule of thumb, meaning "a rough guideline". 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. In the United States, some of these scandalous legends have had to do with racism and slavery; common words such as picnic, buck, and crowbar 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 wordniggardly led to the resignation of a US public official because it sounded similar to the unrelated word nigger.
Derivational-Only Popular Etymology (DOPE) versus Generative Popular Etymology (GPE)
proposes a clear-cut distinction between Derivational-Only Popular Etymology and Generative Popular Etymology :
"DOPE consists of etymological reanalysis of a pre-existent lexical item The DOPE producer is applying his/her Apollonian Tendency, the wish to describe and create order, especially with unfamiliar information or new experience , the craving for meaningfulness." DOPE is "merely passive", "mistaken derivation, where there is a rationalization ex postfacto."
