Thread: "Folk" Etymologies of Russian Words like ЛЮБОВЬ(ЛЮДИ БОГА ВЕДАЮТ)- what do you think?

Originally Posted by MarkRWayne

First, I'm going to use the term "folk etymology" to describe this phenomenon. I'm not sure what the proper academic term would be (in English or Russian), so if anyone here can enlighten me, that would be great!

I suppose it would be a type of "folk etymology", although more specifically "люди бога ведают" seems likely to be a so-called "backronym" or "acrostic" that was later mistaken for the real etymology. The English wikipedia article on "backronym" gives the example of the Alcoholics Anonymous slogan that "the word denial stands for Don't Even Notice I Am Lying". But I assume no one in AA literally believes that the word "denial" originated as an acronym.

Similarly, the popular notion that "fuck" derives from "Fornication Under Consent of the King" or "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge" was originally a semi-witty joke that some people naively took to be true. So you might call it a "fake-folk-etymology."

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

I suppose it would be a type of "folk etymology", although more specifically "люди бога ведают" seems likely to be a so-called "backronym" or "acrostic" that was later mistaken for the real etymology. The English wikipedia article on "backronym" gives the example of the Alcoholics Anonymous slogan that "the word denial stands for Don't Even Notice I Am Lying". But I assume no one in AA literally believes that the word "denial" originated as an acronym.

Thank you for posting, Throbert. I completely forgot about backronyms, and the example you gave is great. I think that there are more Russians who literally believe in the veracity of Russian etymologies than there are English speakers who believe that the word "denial" derived from the acronym you mentioned.