folk-etymologize

If I were the kind of person to speculate without foundation about the origin of idioms in other words, if I felt competent to folk-etymologize with abandon I would say that perhaps it comes from the notion that a big full skirt and big round cheese might have some topological symmetry.

September 2006 2006

If I were the kind of person to speculate without foundation about the origin of idioms in other words, if I felt competent to folk-etymologize with abandon I would say that perhaps it comes from the notion that a big full skirt and big round cheese might have some topological symmetry.

"make cheese" - A Dress A Day 2006

Alas, the same Teutonic root almost certainly accounts for harbor, thereby putting paid to George Borrow's attempt to folk-etymologize that word to the Welsh/Gaelic aber ` riverine estuary or confluence. '

VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol X No 2 1983