How Certain Words and Phrases Were Linguistically Adapted to Become More Familiar
Dr. Erica Brozovsky of the PBS series Otherwords explained how certain words originated through “folk etymology”, a process in which certain phrases or names go through a bit of linguistic adaptation to make them sound more familiar to our brains.
Folk etymology is the process by which the form of an unfamiliar or foreign word is adapted to a more familiar form through popular usage. It also accounts for the unsubstantiated theories about those word and phrase origin.
