What seems clear is that chewing the fat, like shooting the breeze, provides little sustenance for the amount of mastication involved. The Greek etymon means true, original, and the Greek root -logia means science or study. Thus, etymology is supposed to be the science or study of true and original word meanings. But I have learned that the proud house of etymology is populated by all manner of ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggety beasties miscreated by spook etymologists. These sham scholars would rather invent a word origin after the fact than trace it to its true source.
Spooks prefer drama and romance to accuracy and truth.
A dramatic example of spook etymology is dragging its chains around the Internet even as I write. Life in the 1500s purports to explain all sorts of words and phrases on the basis of life 500 years ago. Alas, almost all the etymologies in Life in the 1500s are spookily haunted. The combination would sometimes knock people out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would them for dead and prepare them for burial.