CLASSIC 185 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Backronym, Desertion, Zip Code
Document Summary
Folk etymology also sometimes called popular etymology has nothing to do with modern linguistic de nition of etymology ordinary people"s perception of the words. Note: fast is an unproductive morpheme; folk etymology reshaped it into shamefaced (16th century) English form wejack (late 17th/early 18th century) woodchuck occurred because of folk-etymological adjustment. Ation noun >new -ate verb orientation >orientate, besides standard verb orient (american not british english) English do the whole orientate thing e. g relation >relate 14th century >16th century self-destruction >self-destruct (cf. verb destroy; no verb *destruct) lip-reading >lip-read vacuum-cleaner >vacuum-clean (then, via clipping) >vacuum. E cherry (pl. cherries) adjusted to t the pattern of speech no category change here initialisms and acronyms. Ufo fairly rare before 20th century, except ok. Reverse acronyms : e. g. zip code (zone improvement plan) in general (for both initialisms and acronyms): arti cial, contrived coinages vs. more.
