Folk etymology, was Re: Python list vs google group

[Peter Otten]

Grant Edwards wrote:

> On 2018-06-18, Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer at cs.nmsu.edu> wrote:
>> Peter Otten <__peter__ at web.de> writes:
>>
>>> Gene Heskett wrote:
>>>
>>>> This biggest single thing wrong with any of those old scsi interfaces
>>>> is the bus's 5 volt isolation diode, the designer speced a shotkey(sp)
>>>> diode, and some damned bean counter saw the price diff and changed it
>>>> to
>>>
>>> Is this a case of <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_etymology> ?
>>>
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_H._Schottky
>>
>> I'm missing why the claim that management changed the spec on a diode
>> from Schottky to conventional would be folk etymology?  Or why Gene
>> being unsure of his spelling would?  What does any of this have to do
>> with etymology, folk or genuine?
> 
> I was wondering the same thing...

"folk etymology" would be the retrofitting of the exotic "Schottky" into two 
familiar words "shot" and "key". Sometimes the writer assumes that these 
words are somehow related to the labeled object.

The best known example in German is

Maulwurf ("mouth throw" for mole)

leading to the (false) idea that moles use their mouth to build mole hills.