We swim through a lot of garbage these days. But there is no garbage like fake-etymology garbage. The list of terms under discussion here could serve as a record of one-syllable words commonly found scrawled in public lavatories.
Indeed, this column was inspired by a recent conversation on the derivation of the most common racial slur for people of Italian descent. The version spelt with an “o” in the middle apparently “stands for ‘without papers’”. The notion is that, a century or two ago, Americans believed recent Italian immigrants to be disproportionately undocumented.
On hearing such a fascinating snippet, a large portion of the world’s population will, without stopping to wonder if this can possibly be true, immediately broadcast what they have discovered alongside the letters “TIL” (that’s “today I learnt”, grandad). A slightly less enormous cohort will immediately assume the information is yet more man-in-the-pub etymological baloney.
Obviously, the correct response is neutral scepticism. Consult a few sources. Ponder the probabilities. Compose a Facebook post in this style: “TIL that, on balance of probabilities, it is not likely that…” It is equally obvious that nobody has time for that. Knee-jerk straight towards the “it’s claptrap” option and you will rarely be proven wrong.
Can anybody really be so gullible that they believe the most flexible of swearwords had its origins in the phrase 'for unlawful carnal knowledge'?
The supposed derivation of the w-word is, of course, nonsense. The term was common long before the US introduced immigration papers in 1928. It joins a bafflingly long list of words that, despite the all-knowing pontifications of the man in the pool room, are not now, nor ever have been acronyms.
The grandaddy of them all is surely "posh". Long, long before the arrival of the internet, exhausting unmarried uncles were telling bored children that the term derived from the words "port out, starboard home". The notion went that on certain shipping routes – maybe down the Suez Canal, maybe the round trip to Hong Kong – cabins so allocated were more desirable and thus ended up with better-off travellers. For no reason that makes sense, the letters "POSH" were, according to this theory, stamped on tickets or manifests.
"Whenever I'm bored I travel abroad but ever so properly. Port out, starboard home, posh with a capital P-O-S-H," Lionel Jeffries sang in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. We have bad news for Lionel. "No evidence of its use has yet appeared," Merriam-Webster, the most distinguished of American lexicographers, recently concluded. "The acronymic theory of the origin of the adjective posh is simply a modern invention."
There are dozens of these things. Can anybody really be so gullible that they believe the most flexible of swearwords had its origins in the phrase “for unlawful carnal knowledge”? If so, they may want to stay away from anyone arguing that “ship high in transit” was once associated with vessels carrying manure. A concentration of such intellectual density could cause the surrounding universe to fold itself into a annihilating black hole. “How old were you when you realised ‘golf’ was an abbreviation for Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden?” someone wonders on the social media.
The false etymologies are even more usefully compared with conspiracy theories
The preposterous explanations extend beyond acronymic origins of common words. For the last few years, each Christmas season has brought us an unnecessary and ludicrous explanation for the appearance of “the NYPD choir” in the lyrics to Fairytale of New York, despite no such body existing. The popular meme tells us “the NYPD choir” was a nickname given to the Irish singing in the drunk tank. There is no evidence for this. No Pogue has, to my knowledge, ever claimed such a thing. It is almost certainly baloney.
Sticking on that controversial tune, the gay slur that causes so much controversy each year – it rhymes with “maggot” – does not, as is often suggested, derive from medieval homosexuals being burnt alive like the homonymous bundles of wood. This is, according to the Online Etymological Dictionary, “an urban legend”.
It is tempting to blame the internet for this epidemic of bilge. But the trade in outlandish etymologies has been going on for as long as humans have had mouths. The comparison with urban myths above is useful. It is close to 50 years since I heard the story – it happened to “a friend of a cousin” or something – about the childminder phoning a baby’s parents to to tell them she had “put the chicken in the oven” (you can guess where this was going), but that legend is still doing the rounds.
The false etymologies are even more usefully compared to conspiracy theories. They make a complicated, frayed, uncertain world easier to digest. In what kind of random universe could one demented loner kill the president of the United States with a lucky shot from a book warehouse? It is more satisfying to attribute the murder to a well-organised cabal within the military-industrial complex.
Etymology is a complex, uncertain discipline. The origins of words most often spread backwards – like a complicated family tree – into a web of sometimes-uncertain antecedents. How much neater if “tag” comes from “touch and go” or “tip” comes from “to ensure promptness”?
We really could list these things all night.
