Such etymologies often have the feel of urban legends, and can be much more colorful and fanciful than the typical etymologies found in dictionaries, often involving stories of unusual practices in particular subcultures (e.g. Oxford students from non-noble families being supposedly forced to write sine nobilitate by their name, soon abbreviated to s.nob., hence the word snob). Many recent examples are "backronyms" (acronyms made up to explain a term), as in snob, and posh for "port outward, starboard homeward" ; many other sourced examples are listed in the article on backronyms . Source and influence of false etymologies Erroneous etymologies can exist for many reasons. Some are reasonable interpretations of the evidence that happen to be false. For a given word there may often have been many serious attempts by scholars to propose etymologies based on the best information available at the time, and these can be later modified or rejected as linguistic scholarship advances. The results of medieval etymology, for example, were plausible given the insights available at the time, but have often been rejected by modern linguists. The etymologies of humanist scholars in the early modern period began to produce more reliable results, but many of their hypotheses have also been superseded. Association with urban legends Some etymologies are part of urban legends, and seem to respond to a general taste for the surprising, counter-intuitive and even scandalous. One common example has to do with the phrase rule of thumb, meaning "a rough guideline". An urban legend has it that the phrase refers to an old English law under which a man could legally beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb. "DOPE consists of etymological reanalysis of a pre-existent lexical item [...] The DOPE producer is applying his/her Apollonian Tendency, the wish to describe and create order, especially with unfamiliar information or new experience [...], the craving for meaningfulness." DOPE is "merely passive", "mistaken derivation, where there is a rationalization ex postfacto ." GPE, on the other hand, involves the introduction of a new sense (meaning) or a new lexical item – see, for example, Phono-semantic matching. List of common false etymologies of English words Back-formation Backronym Bongo-Bongo (linguistics) Chinese word for "crisis" Daniel Cassidy Eggcorn Etymological fallacy False cognate False friend Folk etymology Johannes Goropius Becanus Linguistic interference (language transfer) Medieval etymology OK Phonestheme Phono-semantic matching Pseudoscientific language comparison Semantic change Slang dictionary  References External links Richard Lederer, Spook Etymology on the Internet Popular Fallacies – the Nonsense Nine Notes
Such etymologies often have the feel of urban legends, and can be more colorful and fanciful than the typical etymologies found in dictionaries, often involving stories of unusual practices in particular subcultures (e.g. Oxford students from non-noble families being supposedly forced to write sine nobilitate by their name, soon abbreviated to s.nob., hence the word snob). Many recent examples are "backronyms" (acronyms made up to explain a term), such as posh for "port outward, starboard homeward" . Source and influence Erroneous etymologies can exist for many reasons. Some are reasonable interpretations of the evidence that happen to be false. For a given word there may often have been many serious attempts by scholars to propose etymologies based on the best information available at the time, and these can be later modified or rejected as linguistic scholarship advances. The results of medieval etymology, for example, were plausible given the insights available at the time, but have often been rejected by modern linguists. The etymologies of humanist scholars in the early modern period began to produce more reliable results, but many of their hypotheses have also been superseded. Some etymologies are part of urban legends, and seem to respond to a general taste for the surprising, counter-intuitive and even scandalous. One common example has to do with the phrase rule of thumb, meaning "a rough guideline". An urban legend has it that the phrase refers to an old English law under which a man could legally beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb. "DOPE consists of etymological reanalysis of a pre-existent lexical item [...] The DOPE producer is applying his/her Apollonian Tendency, the wish to describe and create order, especially with unfamiliar information or new experience [...], the craving for meaningfulness." DOPE is "merely passive", "mistaken derivation, where there is a rationalization ex post-facto ." GPE, on the other hand, involves the introduction of a new sense (meaning) or a new lexical item – see, for example, phono-semantic matching. List of common false etymologies of English words Back-formation Backronym Bongo-Bongo (linguistics) Chinese word for "crisis" Eggcorn Etymological fallacy False cognate False friend Linguistic interference OK Phonestheme Phono-semantic matching Pseudoscientific language comparison Semantic change Notes References External links Richard Lederer, Spook Etymology on the Internet Popular Fallacies – the Nonsense Nine 
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much
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as in snob, and
such as
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; many other sourced examples are listed in the article on backronyms
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of false etymologies
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Association with urban legends
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postfacto
post-facto
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Phono-semantic
phono-semantic
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Daniel Cassidy
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Folk etymology Johannes Goropius Becanus Linguistic interference (language transfer) Medieval etymology
Linguistic interference
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Slang dictionary
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Notes
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Notes