Whether we’re talking about “shit,” “fuck,” or “sirloin,” people love inventing amusing stories to explain the origins of common words. False etymology is fun — explaining that “fuck” derives from signs adulterers wore reading “for unlawful carnal knowledge” is way more amusing than pointing out the Indo-European root –peuk. But if you ask this pedant, fun is hardly as important as accuracy, so enjoy learning the true origins of the following 12 words that didn’t actually come from where that one kid told you they came from.
Golf
Despite what a good story it would be if it was true, the word “golf” isn’t an acronym for the phrase “gentlemen only; ladies forbidden,” and not only because you don’t need to say “ladies forbidden” if you’ve just said “gentleman only.”
The real origin “golf” is a bit tricky to difine. According to the United States Golf Association, “golf” derives from the Dutch word for “club”: “kolf” or “kolve.” It then began being used in Scotland, where modern golf was innovated. The Scottish word “goulf,” which means to strike or hit, could also be what put a name to the worst sport ever invented.
OK
“OK” is one of the most widely used words in the world. It’s also a really weird one. We don’t pronounce it like “ock,” as we probably should. Instead, we say the letters. OK. It’s a relatively recent word — it was first seen in print in 1839 — but we can’t say for sure where it came from. Here are the main theories.
The abbreviation “o.k.” was used as a joke by Boston’s newspaper editors in the 1830s; it meant “all correct.” That’s short for “oll korrect,” (Get it?) That’s the first printed “o.k.” exactly as we use it now. But there are other possibilities.
Until the 1960s, Webster’s and other authoritative sources claimed “OK” came from the Choctaw “okeh” meaning “it is so.” Apparently, missionaries to the Choctaw started ended their writings with “okeh.”
But even earlier than that, in 1784, the word “kay” shows up in print in a transcription of a West African slave saying “enough” when being flogged: “Kay, massa, you just leave me, me sit here, great fish jump up into da canoe…”
Or maybe it came from Scottish people saying “och aye.”
Or it could have been from the Greek “óla kalá” or “all good.”
We probably will never know for sure, and that’s OK.
420
420 is not the California penal code number for marijuana use. It’s not the number of chemicals in marijuana. It’s not because a famous stoner rock star (Jim Morrison, Janice Joplin, Keith Moon, etc.) died on April 20 — none of those people died on April 20. It’s not because the Grateful Dead stayed in room 420 when on tour. It’s not because it’s Hitler’s birthday, either (although he was born on April 20.) The origin of the using 420 for smoking weed is a rare case where the real story if more interesting than the made up ones.
The real reason weed is called 420 (though there is still some debate on this point) is because back in 1971, a group of five students at San Rafael High School in California used to meet after school, at 4:20, to search for an abandoned marijuana field. They never found the weed, but for reasons impossible to understand, their personal code for smoking up caught on and spread to stoners worldwide.
Bug
The word bug, when used to refer to a computer error, is said to harken back to an incident in which an actual bug crawled into an ancient computer and mucked up the punch cards or pulleys or whatever. A great story, but not literally true.
The first written appearance of the word dates to an article about Thomas Edison in London’s Pall Mall Gazette in 1889. Edison reportedly spent two nights trying to find a “bug” in his phonograph. The Gazette explains that “bug” was an expression “for solving a difficulty, and implying that some imaginary insect has secreted itself inside and is causing all the trouble.”
Tip
The word “tip” in the context of “tip your waiter” is not an acronym for “To Insure Promptness.” The word was used in English over 400 years ago, and acronyms are mostly a 20th century thing that we tend to use for novelties like RADAR, SCUBA, or CAPTCHA.
The real origin of “tip,” meaning “give extra for services rendered,” is in old English gangster slang. The Oxford English Dictionary cites material published in 1610 that states that criminals called used “cheats” to mean “things” and “tip” for “give.” So they might say “tip me that cheat” to mean “gimme that.” By the 18th century, to tip meant to give extra money to servants. It also meant “to bribe.”
Emoji
The nearly archaic word “emoticon” is a portmanteau of “emotion” and “icon.” It was coined by computer scientist Scott E. Fahlman on September 19, 1982. If you assumed the more popular word “emoji” is a bastardized version of “emoticon,” you’re mistaken.
“Emoji” was first used with its current meaning in 1997. It’s a combination of the Japanese word for picture (pronounced eh), plus “letter” or “character” (mōji). Before referring to smiley faces we used to not seem mean in texts, “emoji” was used to refer to the icons on your computer for a particular app or printer or whatever.
Fuck
Despite the story you might have heard in 8th grade, the word “fuck” isn’t an acronym for “for unlawful carnal knowledge.” It doesn’t mean “fornication under consent of the king” either.
Fuck is not an acronym for anything, but tracking down its origin is difficult. “Fuck” was basically always an obscene word, so it wasn’t written down very often or spoken about. It wasn’t included in dictionaries until 1966, even though olden times fuckers must have said it all the time. Anyway, it’s probably based on a word from a Germanic language. Maybe Middle Dutch fokken, “to thrust, copulate with”; Norwegian fukka = “to copulate”; and/or Swedish dialect focka = “to strike, push, copulate.” Or maybe it’s from the German “ficken.” If you want to, you can trace it back further, all the way to the Indo-European root peuk-, or “to prick.” In other words, fuck has been around for a long fucking time.
The first recorded use of the word fuck in English may date back to 1310, where court records document a criminal referred to as “Roger Fuckebythenavele.” This could have been a joke by the court reporter, or it could have been Roger’s unfortunate nickname.
Shit
The word “shit” does not mean “Ship High in Transit.” The acronym was not stamped on manure being shipped as a warning to keep it from getting wet lest methane be produced and an explosion result.
“Shit” was used in English as early as the14th century, in German before that, but it’s such an old word, it likely pre-dates either language and springs from the proto-German root “skit-“.
Crap
Thomas Crapper was a real guy — a plumber and businessman who founded Thomas Crapper & Co. plumbing in London in the late 1800s. He really did make a number of improvements to the toilet that are still with us. Crapper invented “u-bend pipes,” and the floating “ballcock” that’s in your toilet right now. But in spite of a career spent in the crapper, Crapper’s name was either a coincidence…or destiny. “Crap” was first used to refer to human waste in 1846, years before Thomas Crapper was born. Before that, “crap” was used to refer to weeds or rubbish as far back as middle English.
Nasty
Like Thomas Crapper before him Thomas Nast had a coincidental name. He was 19th century cartoonist known for scathing caricatures and for creating the Republican Party’s elephant mascot. His work may have been nasty, but the word wasn’t coined for Nast himself. No one is sure of the origin of “nasty,” but it was used as far back as the 14th century.
Cracker
People love making up origin stories for obscene words and racial slurs. To represent the latter, consider “cracker”: It’s widely believed that cracker either refers to actual crackers (and white people’s resemblances to them with regard to skin tone), or is a shortened version of “whip-cracker,” and originally referred to either lower-caste white people who drove cattle, or slave overseers. But the word with something like its current meaning is much older. Shakespeare’s The Life and Death of King John, published in 1590, contains the line “What craker is this same that deafs our ears with this abundance of superfluous breath?” It means something like a loudmouth, but refers specifically to Scots-Irish immigrants to America. Hey, those are my people! Fuck you, Shakespeare!
Sirloin
Maybe this isn’t a commonly known fake story about how a thing got its name, but it’s so much better than the boring truth I had to include it.
According to legend, at some point between 1650 and 1685, King Charles II was visiting the estate of Hoghton in Lancashire, England. The King was served a particularly impressive cut of beef at lunch, and was moved to declare, “A noble joint! By St. George, it shall have a title!”
He solemnly drew his sword and tapped the beef, declaring “Loin, we dub thee knight; henceforward be Sir Loin!”
Really it’s from the Middle French “surlonge,” which means “upper part of the loin.” But I’m still going to tell the King Charles story.
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