Myths in the English language

A You're with a friend and you start talking about language, probably because one of you has
just uttered an expression that you've never thought about before, like 'one fell swoop' or
'dressed to the nines'. Your friend tells you an interesting story about where the saying comes
from, such as that the word 'honeymoon' derives from an old Persian custom of giving the happy
couple mead for the first month after the wedding.
B Well, you believe it, don't you? Who wouldn't? The story is convincing, often backed up with
extraneous but significant detail. And you have nothing to measure it against. It all sounds very
reasonable. At the next opportunity, you mention the story to somebody else. Each time you do
so, or hear somebody else repeat it, the tale becomes more familiar. After a while, it's as though
you have always known it.
C We're suckers for a really good story - it's one way we make sense of the world around us and
so turn the unfamiliar into the known and the comfortable. Stories about language must satisfy
on a number of levels: they must reassure and convince, but above all they must interest and
entertain. Stories that are boring, mundane or inconclusive will not survive.
D There are various specific kinds of mistaken etymology that continually recur. One argues that
a given word has been created as an acronym, from the initial letters of a phrase. This is a
common mistake, applied to words as widely differentiated as 'cop' ('constable on patrol'), 'posh'
('port out, starboard home', from sailing-ship days) or 'tip' (money given to a waiter 'to insure
promptness'). People think this is a sensible sort of suggestion because we are surrounded by
acronyms, such as NATO ('North Atlantic Treaty Organization'). Some are now so accepted as
words in their own right that few know their true origins: 'radar' is from 'radio detection and
ranging', 'laser' from 'light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation' and 'scuba' from
'self-contained underwater breathing apparatus'.
E The fashion for acronymic creation is a military one, dating from around the time of the First
World War (an early example is AWOL, or 'Absent Without Leave', though even this wasn't
consistently pronounced as a word at the time), and acronyms didn't get into general circulation
until the Second World War and later. There are almost no examples of words of acronymic
origin before 1900. Indeed, the very word 'acronym' wasn't coined until 1943.
F Another, more erudite mistake is to assume that because a word exists in English, and a
similar-sounding word with much the same meaning exists in another language, the two must be

connected. One of the more famous examples is that 'OK' derives from the Choctaw okah, all
right; it was also thought at one time that 'yankee' came from Cherokee eankke, a slave. The
truth is that chance sound resemblances across languages, even among words with similar
senses, are surprisingly easy to find and mean nothing in themselves.
G On the other hand, sometimes a word really is adapted from another language or dialect, or
from a once-common word that has become archaic or rare. Either way, it is strange, and so is
modified into something that sounds like a current English form. Our minds search for familiar
patterns and make mistakes. For example, when the second half of 'bridegome' for the male half
of a marrying couple became obsolete, people borrowed 'groom' instead (making 'bridegroom').
The Spanish cucaracha made no sense to English speakers, so they transmogrified it into
'cockroach'. There are hundreds of such examples. When they first appear, they are often viewed
as mistakes, as indeed they are, but they can become accepted in time.
H Some misunderstandings about etymology can have serious consequences. We have seen a
number of serious disputes arise in America in recent years because someone thinks a person has
used racist language. Almost any word beginning 'black' or which implies a dark colour is open
to suspicion. A member of the mayor's staff in Washington was disciplined when he used the
word 'niggardly', because it was supposedly linked to 'nigger' (it isn't). There have been similarly
false stories concerning the origin of 'picnic', 'nitty-gritty' and 'squaw'.
I In Elizabethan times, Sir Thomas Gresham promulgated the rule that 'bad money drives out
good' - that good-quality coins mixed with debased ones will be hoarded or exported, leaving
only the rubbish in circulation. It's much the same with etymology, alas. Only an etymologist
could or would be expected to take the time to exhaustively research the history and evidence
behind such stories, and in these days of electronic communications an entertaining but false
word history will race twice around the world before the etymologist has had time to put fingers
to keyboard.
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)

G
D
A
I
F
B

tip
spreads without being
widely
become
cockroach
niggardly
meaning

ponta
se espalha sem ser
largamente
tornar-se
barata
mesquinho
significado