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The term folk etymology is a loan translation from German Volksetymologie, coined by Ernst Förstemann in 1852. [6] Folk etymology is a productive process in historical linguistics, language change, and social interaction. [7] Reanalysis of a word's history or original form can affect its spelling, pronunciation, or meaning.
Examples of folk etymology such as interpreting asparagus as "sparrow-grass". [4] These are cases where speakers deduce an incorrect word origin. Another folk etymology is the assumption that the New York place name Fishkill (on Fishkill Creek) means a place to kill fish.
A false etymology (fake etymology or pseudo-etymology) is a false theory about the origin or derivation of a specific word or phrase.When a false etymology becomes a popular belief in a cultural/linguistic community, it is a folk etymology (or popular etymology). [1]
Volk is the cognate of English folk and also overlaps in the usage of the latter as in Volksmusik "folk music", Volksglaube "folk belief" etc. In the 18th century, German Volk was mostly reserved for "crowd" or "mass of the population", while the concept of "a people" or "a nation" was now expressed by the Latinism Nation.
Crap: The word "crap" did not originate as a back-formation of British plumber Thomas Crapper's surname, nor does his name originate from the word "crap", although the surname may have helped popularize the word.
Where a folk etymology is a change in the form of a word caused by widespread misunderstanding of the word's etymology, an eggcorn may be limited to one person rather than being used generally within a speech community. [6] [3]
A folk etymology derives lullaby from "Lilith-Abi" (Hebrew for "Lilith, begone"). [6] [7] [8] In the Jewish tradition, Lilith was a demon who was believed to steal children's souls in the night. To guard against Lilith, Jewish mothers would hang four amulets on nursery walls with the inscription "Lilith – abei" ["Lilith – begone"]. [9] [10]
The difference to a folk etymology (or an eggcorn) is that a folk etymology is based on misunderstanding, whereas an expressive loan is changed on purpose, the speaker taking the loanword knowing full well that the descriptive quality is different from the original sound and meaning. South-eastern Finnish, for example, has many expressive loans.