Am I the only one who gets a little irritated (it isn't strong enough to actually count as annoyance) by television programs which try to add a little interest by including linguistic information but do it by repeating folk etymologies and urban myths which five minutes with a dictionary would disprove.

Take the program that's on at the moment, Bargain Hunt. A few minutes ago the presenter was looking at an ivory carving of two gnomes. To spice it up the presenter asked us if we were familiar with the origin of the word "gnome". It is, he told us, an acronym meaning Guarding Naturally Over Mother Earth. This is of course utter nonsense. You should always hear alarm bells ringing when anyone claims that an old word (gnome was first recorded in the 16th century) is an acronym.

Gnome is of course no such thing. It is generally considered to have been coined by Paracelcus possibly based on a Greek word meaning "earth dweller". An alternate theory is that it was based on a form of "gignoskein" - to know. (Information that it took me about two minutes to find - I previously didn't know the origin of the word.)

What is pretty damned unlikely is that someone writing five centuries ago in German, at a time when acronyms were all but unused, would choose to coin a new word by forming an acronym from English words.

The trouble is that people believe these things - especially if given a specious authority by the almighty television.

A possible explanation is that there are several thousand hits in Google putting the same theory. Sooner or later everything turns up on the internet and they way things are going - with BBC researchers apparently using the internet as a primary source - truth is going to disappear altogether replaced by consensus belief.

I just wish they would check a bit more carefully before spouting nonsense to a gullible public.


(Incidentally, later in the program, explaining the inscription G-IV-R on a piece of furniture he referred to the GR as George Rex (so far so good) and the IV as "one vee, or four". Surely that should be read as "eye vee, or four".)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

It irritates me too. Once I heard someone or other say on TV that "tip" was an acronym for "to insure promptness". I haven't heard the "gnome" acronym before, that's pretty clever.

Of course the "port out starboard home" and "for use of carnal knowledge" stories are so commonly believed that absolutely nothing you can say, backed up by any appeal to competent authority will change a single person's mind. They just won't believe you. These might as well be real origins for all the chance you have of convincing anyone otherwise.

I once heard, again on a BBC program, the ludicrous (though common on the internet) statement that the fear of long words is "hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia". This is also on wikipedia.

Bob, I've already read your blog post, and commented there about the "GIVR" point you make.

I think that most of us know that words formed from acronyms only became regularly used during the second world war (although a couple date from the Great War). We are not the general public, though, who are likely to swallow all sorts of unlikely tales concerning the origin of words. The only response can be to point people in the direction of snopes.com in many cases, although, as mentioned, many still refuse to give up a cherished belief.

I saw your comment there arnie. I always repost here any blogposts that I make specifically about language because I know that not everybody here regularly reads my blog.

I think my main point, inasmuch as I have one, is that I get irritated by "trusted" sources such as the BBC frequently repeating this nonsense as if it were true. Fact checking seems to be a lost art.

quote:

Originally posted by BobHale:
Of course the "port out starboard home" and "for use of carnal knowledge" stories are so commonly believed that absolutely nothing you can say, backed up by any appeal to competent authority will change a single person's mind. They just won't believe you. These might as well be real origins for all the chance you have of convincing anyone otherwise.

I think I convinced one guy

Jim Morrison? Wow. That's some convert! Although since he'd died over 30 years earlier I don't know if you can count him.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/...etail?entry_id=42805

As for "posh," it was hoping it was "porto out, sherry home."

Then there's the French Gnome: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnome_et_Rh%C3%B4ne

quote:

The trouble is that people believe these things - especially if given a specious authority by the almighty television.

The same is true, doubled in spades, about the Internet...similarly with books, speakers, etc. I have heard such rubbish touted by people who simply believe everything they hear.

quote:

I saw your comment there arnie. I always repost here any blogposts that I make specifically about language because I know that not everybody here regularly reads my blog.

I appreciate that, Bob. I feel the same way about my Blog, though I don't post much about epicaricacy here because I know the subject irritates some people.

Have you noticed that video clips (which once were free of ads) in some cases had a short ad at the beginning (5-15 seconds). But now the ads are wasting up to a full minute of valuable time that could be better spent doing research for my forthcoming book Don't Watch These Porn Videos.

Just saw this headline:

Segway Inventor Dies in Segway Accident

Ironic, isn't it? Apparently he drove off a cliff and fell into a river. Police cannot ascertain if he was texting at the time.

A minor correction: he wasn't the inventor of the Segway, he was the owner of Segway Inc. Apparently he liked it so much he bought the company.

I suppose you could say that he was buying a Segway to heaven.

Sorry.

Or...to...

quote:

A minor correction: he wasn't the inventor of the Segway, he was the owner of Segway Inc.

I can ony go by the paper. His last words were "Hey! Watch this!"

quote:

Originally posted by Proofreader:

Don't Watch These Porn Videos.
Which ones shouldn't we watch? Do they have ads? How many feature you? If they had porn rodeos I'd be one of the clowns. Gives a whole new interpretation to the term, "Buck off!"

The Huffington Post has a story about Google Instant. Apparently Google is censoring some terms entered in the Search box. If you type certain words in, nothing appears. The HufPost listed several. They were

cocaine
Paris Hilton
bisexual
lesbian
fecal
boob
anus
amateur
butt
lolita
latina
homoerotic
Phillip H. Dick
scat
penis
aryan

Well, there goes my research.

Was that a bad poem?

Phillip H. Dick

Phillip K Dick's dead twin? No, wait she was a girl.

quote:

Phillip H. Dick

Phillip K Dick's dead twin? No, wait she was a girl.

My inferior typing

I thought it was some sort of exclamation, as in "Jesus H. Christ!"

This is a bit of a diversion, but here is a previous discussion on Jesus H. Christ.

If the Guinness people had been around in Biblical times they would have given awards to the

Smallest man in the Bible: the soldier who slept on his watch

Best Biblical contortionist: the man who tied his ass to a tree and walked ten miles.