Folk etymology, was Re: Python list vs google group

[Joe Pfeiffer]

Peter Otten <__peter__ at web.de> writes:

> 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.

This would only be a folk etymology if (1) the spelling were really
"shotkey", and (2) someone thought it was because of some tortured
derivation from "shot" and "key".

Most of the best-known examples in English are backronyms like Port
Outboard Starboard Home and For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge.