[Ads-l] Antedating of "Folk-Etymology"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Curious too that it doesn't include the sense "a popularly believed but
mistaken etymology." Like retroacronyms (not in OED).

JL

On Tue, Jan 16, 2024 at 8:39 AM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

> Curious that the OED entry (“the popular perversion [!] of the form of
> words in order to render it apparently significant”) doesn’t mention that
> “folk-etymology” (with the telltale hyphen) in these early cites is a
> calque from the much earlier (1850s) German _Volksetymologie_.
>
> LH
>
> > On Jan 15, 2024, at 8:14 PM, victor steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> wrote:
> >
> > Not going as far back but a whole volume on folk etymology:
> >
> https://books.google.com/books?id=YX5BAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22folk+etymology%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_search&ovdme=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiRy5Wc2-CDAxWHEVkFHSZiAvwQuwV6BAgNEAc#v=onepage&q=%22folk%20etymology%22&f=false
> > Folk-etymology. A Dictionary of Verbal Corruption of Words Perverted in
> > Form or Meaning, by False Derivation or Mistaken Analogy
> > By Rev. A. Smythe Palmer
> > London: George Bell & Sons, 1882
> >
> > On Mon, Jan 15, 2024, 16:54 Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
> >
> >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >> -----------------------
> >> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >> Poster:       "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> >> Subject:      Antedating of "Folk-Etymology"
> >>
> >>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >> folk-etymology (OED 1883)
> >>
> >> 1874 _Saturday Review_ 21 Nov. 675/1 (ProQuest)  According to a similr
> >> kind=
> >> of "folk-etymology" many names of places have been wrongly referred to
> >> ali=
> >> en sources.
> >>
> >> Fred Shapiro
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org