folk etymology

While today, in possession of a formerly unprecedented amount of manuscript and epigraphic material, we take pride in correcting obsolete understandings and folk etymologies regarding the composition of characters (e.

Now, Richler may have been exercising dry wit there, but if so, he should have been more overt about it; as he knows, jokes about etymology can be taken as the truth--he himself puts paid to silly folk etymologies for "golf," "OK," "loo" and a very popular vulgarity.

Kroeber, for example, had a low tolerance for folk etymologies and poor scholarship on the subject, especially when it came to explaining the origins of California place names.

He eventually attained this recognition with the general reading public for the humor and raciness of his stories and for his remarkable prose, which is full of puns, colloquial expressions, folk etymologies, and neologisms.

11) However, in the specialized reviews noteworthy studies can be found, (12) and the classic works on onomastics are very useful (13) as well as the studies on so-called folk etymologies (etymologies that are, in fact, etiologies, assuming behind them there are the myth and the story), also the ones on toponyms, hydronyms, oiconyms etc.