What's in a Word?

Last week I picked up an interesting-sounding title – Ballyhoo, Buckaroo, and Spuds, by Michael Quinion - from the $2 rack of my favorite store, Half Price Books. Being a fan of etymology (i.e., word origins) and finding myself in the market for a quick read over the holidays, the purchase was a no-brainer.
Imagine my pleasant surprise, then, to find within the first four pages of the book some unlikely echoes of a few of the concepts I’ve been developing in the Daily Improviser blog.

On page 2, Quinion observes that there are few fields of study as open to oft-repeated misinformation as etymology. Everyone knows the acronymic origin of words like COP (“Constable on Patrol”) and TIP (“To Insure Promptness”), right? (Well, OK, I admit I’m using those words in place of other more scatological “acronyms” that have gained a wide circulation, accompanied by a knowing nudge-nudge-wink-wink.) But as Quinion notes, almost none of these reputed acronyms actually represents the origin of the words in question (the term “acronym” itself dates only from World War I).

Yet in the popular mind, such dubious stories as to word origins continue to be spread via a process Quinion refers to as “etymythology.” Why is this?

First, as Quinion explains:

"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. So it’s important that we have stories that explain things, but it’s much less important that the stories we tell are verifiably true. [Such stories] must reassure and convince, but above all they must interest and entertain. Stories that are boring, mundane, or inconclusive will not survive. Unfortunately, real word histories are often all of these things."

I believe that Quinion is touching on a topic I’ve addressed here before several times: We humans are greatly susceptible to shorthand constructs that explain the world around us. In fact, as I’ve mentioned before, we couldn’t exist without a certain layer of abstraction through which we view and make sense of the world.

This “Layer of Abstraction” can take the form of useful shorthand – for example, describing an unfamiliar concept such as a “pomelo” in terms of a familiar concept such as a “grapefruit,” even though technically the two are not at all the same. However, the Layer can also be seductively misleading, a substitute for engaging in critical thinking. In the case of word origins, our willingness to accept and pass along a good story on shaky evidence can be relatively benign in its impact. However, when we use such one-sided thinking (as represented by the Confirmation Bias) to justify making invidious judgments, it can lead to the worst forms of discrimination and injustice.

(I'll continue with more from Ballyhoo, Buckaroo, and Spuds next time.)