Nor are there any linguistic barriers to this pastime ; the same bird is called perdix in French , and one writer stated that it was thus called because it regularly perdit- 'loses' its brood .sx Even the great are not exempt ; Swift is said to have analysed apothecary as from 'a pot he carries .sx ' But who shall blame them overmuch when we discover that a verb such as atone , with its noun atonement- so obviously Latinate in appearance- is in fact a compound of at and one .sx Children are particularly and naturally prone to this kind of etymologising .sx Continually coming across strange words , they strive to make sense of them in terms of the vocabulary they already possess .sx There was the child who thought that Wilhelmina was so called because she was mean .sx A little boy , whose room overlooked a cemetery , was overheard imitating part of the service with his teddy-bear- 'in the name of the Father , the Son , and in the hole 'e goes .sx ' There was a little girl , wise perhaps beyond her years , who interpreted the wedded state as 'wholly a matter o' money .sx ' It is a sobering thought that , although different in degree , some of the etymologies which even our great dictionaries give may be popular etymologies ; for when information about early forms and meanings of words is scarce , we cannot always be sure that our etymologies are valid .sx We still do not know the origin of the word curmudgeon .sx An early nineteenth century dictionary-maker's surmise that it is from French coeur me@2chant , 'wicked heart,' is rightly suspect .sx For the most part , this pastime has no permanent effect on the language , but occasionally , so strong is the desire to make familiar that which is strange , that a word is changed- either in whole or in part- in accordance with the fancied etymology , and the changed form is henceforth accepted .sx It is a change of this kind which is often specifically intended by the use of the term 'folk etymology .sx ' A good example is a plant , proverbial for its bitter taste , namely wormwood .sx Its Latin name is artemesia absinthium , hence the name absinthe , borrowed from French , for a liqueur distilled from wine and wormwood .sx Few of us would immediately connect this Latin word with another , also taken by us from French , namely vermouth , the aperitif consisting of white wine flavoured with wormwood and other aromatic herbs .sx Both wormwood and vermouth are from the same root , a Germanic word .sx The French borrowed theirs , with but little adaptation , from the Old High German word wermuth , a close relative of which became Old English wermod .sx During the Middle Ages the latter was altered , the first part to worm and the second to wood .sx It matters little to the unlettered that neither worms nor wood appear to have anything to do with the plant .sx The main object , assimilation to that which is familiar , has been achieved .sx Popular etymology shows , in fact , the operation of a widespread and powerful linguistic process , analogy .sx We learn , recollect , and become adept at using language by analogy , that is by recalling likenesses of meaning , grammatical context , form or sound .sx We know that cool , coolness , and even cold , are related to each other .sx It is not surprising , therefore , that our ancestors , knowing that oecern ( modern acorn ) referred to the fruit of the ac 'oaktree,' should assume a connection between the two and believe that -cern should be changed to -corn .sx In fact , the word oecern is related to oecer 'a field' ( modern acre , which has , however , become specialised in meaning ) , and originally referred to the produce of the fields in general .sx It is not the observation of likenesses which is at fault in popular etymology , it is the fact that conclusions about the relationships of words , drawn from comparisons , happen to be erroneous .sx It is not , however , necessary for a whole word to be transformed in order to satisfy the popular etymologist .sx The amateurs , the unsophisticated , have been less exacting in this respect than learned dilettantes .sx It is often sufficient for the former that one part of a strange word should be given a comfortingly familiar form , e.g. -room in mushroom , from French mousseron , or -fish in crayfish , from French crevice ( like vermouth , a borrowing from Old High German , from crebig , related to our crab) .sx It is not even necessary that the altered word should be obviously meaningful in English , provided that it fits a familiar pattern ; for example , admiral- by analogy with the many Latin loanwords in English beginning with ad- has been altered from Arabic amiral ( via French ) , which in turn is from amir , 'prince , lord,' more familiar to us in the form Emir .sx Similarly an ending has been transformed in syllable , from French syllabe ( ultimately from Greek ) , by analogy with the many Latin loanwords ending in -able .sx At this point it may be asked what dictates that one word should be altered and another passed over ?sx It is not enough to say 'unfamiliarity' and leave it at that ; familiarity and unfamiliarity are relative terms .sx Many of the constituent elements of our vocabulary are terms which we use every day .sx They are intimately bound up with ordinary existence ; we accept them automatically , without enquiry .sx We rarely ask ourselves why a house is so called- or a boy or a tree or a bird .sx As our education and experience grow we accept other words , most of which we fit into a linguistic pattern which we accept as belonging to our language .sx We go even further and come to regard the patterns which our own language has assumed as somehow normal , and consequently view words entering from a foreign language with grave suspicion .sx The importance of folk etymology in the development of the language stems largely from the influence it exercises on foreign words when they are first introduced .sx It is not surprising that a great many of these changes appear to have taken place between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries , a period which saw the assimilation of the spate of French loanwords , the floodtide of Latin loanwords and the beginning of a flow of words from the more exotic languages of the world , either directly into English or via other European countries , which had trading and colonial interests in many parts of the world .sx English has no monopoly of folk or popular etymology , but the phenomenon appears to have been particularly widespread in our language .sx Our insularity may account for it in part , but there is another possible explanation .sx Our ancestors , like the Germans to-day , had a predilection for compound words ; although many of these disappeared in the course of time , the expectation that the elements of a polysyllabic word could and should be capable of resolution into meaningful elements may have survived .sx Men of learning have also made free with words , particularly those of Latin origin .sx Abominable was from Latin abominabilis , 'deserving imprecation,' which was a compound of ab and omen and referred to the deprecation of an unfavourable omen .sx From the time of Wycliffe up to the seventeenth century , however , it was spelt abhominable , as if from ab homine , 'away from man,' i.e. 'inhuman .sx ' Modern scholarship has caused restitution to be made here , but not in the case of arbour , a word which goes back through Old French to Latin herbarium , 'a green retreat .sx ' In Middle English it was spelt herber , with the h probably already lost in pronunciation in French .sx By a regular sound change in Middle English , -er came to be pronounced -ar .sx The way was now open for an erroneous association of the word with Latin arbor , 'a tree .sx ' The spelling was first affected , but latterly the meaning also .sx It is now a shady retreat with climbing plants on a framework of wood- the two ideas have been amalgamated .sx The mass of the people , unlettered and knowing no language but their own , were also busy in their way , wrestling with the outlandish forms of foreign words , quite oblivious of the fact that the meanings of most foreign words could not possibly be made to yield satisfactory sense on the basis of English roots .sx But it was generally sufficient that a word be given English dress , even if this was not appropriate .sx An apposite example is the word farthingale , denoting the framework of hoops used for extending women's skirts .sx Here is a word which has been subjected twice to the alterations of popular etymologists , both in French and in English .sx The kernel of the word is Latin viridis , 'green,' which is to be found in Spanish verdugo , a young , pliable green twig ; a framework of such twigs was called a verdugado .sx Borrowed by the French , it became verdugale .sx It was suggested that it was a safeguard of virtue , as it was impossible to approach the lady except at arm's length .sx The French form would become fartugale in Middle English as a result of the change of -er to -ar referred to above .sx But no-one knows what ingenious associations led to the first element being transformed to farthing .sx Many words are thus changed so as to convey a meaning which , however inappropriate , sounds familiarly upon the ear .sx Jerked beef , flesh dried in the sun , is a corruption of Peruvian charqui ; compound , meaning 'enclosure,' is from Malayan kampung ; Charterhouse from French Chartreuse , a Carthusian monastery ; kichshaws from French quelques choses ; battledore , a beetle used for beating washing , is probably from Spanish batidor , 'a beater .sx ' Ember days have nothing to do with the ashes of repentance ; the word is from Old English ymbren , a compound word formed from ymb , 'about , around,' and ryne , 'a recurring period .sx ' In a fifteenth century homily folk etymology can already be seen at work on this word .sx Standard English is far from having a monopoly of this linguistic phenomenon , which is to be found also in the dialects .sx A Hampshire farmer had fowls of different breeds , including Dorkings ; he discriminated ingeniously between the 'dark 'uns' and the 'white 'uns .sx ' The bird name fieldfare may go back to an Old English form feldfare , deduced from an early twelfth century form feldware ; but the first element may originally have been fealu , denoting the yellowish colour of its back , an element changed in early Middle English to felde .sx But in Cumberland , folk etymology certainly seems to have taken place in its dialect name , fell-faw , which is interpreted as 'mountain gypsy .sx ' More than irony is involved in the colloquial description of a place which many of us have , a glory-hole .sx The first element of the word is probably related to Scottish glaury , 'muddy , untidy .sx ' In Scotland and Northern England a three-legged stool was sometimes known as a creepie , a corruption of French tripied , 'three feet .sx ' This interchange between the sound groups [tr] and [kr] is not uncommon ; cf .sx English crane , Danish trane , and English huckleberry and hurtleberry .sx Hackberry is a corruption of hag-/ heg- berry , i.e. hedge berry , a Northern name for the bird-cherry , prunus radus .sx An ingenious rationalisation of hegberry emanated from Cumberland children who explained , 'we caw them hegberries because they heg ( i.e. set on edge ) our teeth .sx ' There is the Lancashire corruption barley-men ( also birley- and burley- ) from byrlawmen , the petty officers of the manorial courts in medieval times ; a byrlaw , cognate with our bye-law , was made by a local court .sx Terms for marbles such as all-plaister , yallow-plaister , alablaster and 2alley blaster are corruptions of alabaster .sx An interesting expression for a lean-faced person is chittyfaced , a corruption of Old French Chichevache ( literally 'starving cow' ) , a medieval monster fabled to devour only patient wives ; being therefore in a chronic state of starvation , it was made a by-word for leanness .sx It is referred to in the closing stanzas of Chaucer's Clerk's Tale of patient Griselda .sx It appears later to have been confused with chit , chitty , 'a young child,' a dialect form of kitty , and to have taken on the meaning 'baby-faced .sx ' Popular etymology , therefore , can result in change of meaning as well as in change of form , as was also the case with arbour .sx A delightful adaptation of a Latin word occurs in the Lancashire goose-on-ten-toes , a goose claimed by husbandmen on the 16th Sunday after Trinity , when the collect ended :sx 'ac bonis operibus jugiter praestet esse intentos .sx '