In the past, we have examined the origins of some popular and peculiar idioms, but for every true story, there’s also a false one, that sometimes becomes more popular than the truth. So today, we put our debunking hats on and set out to correct a few myths about language and communication, be they false acronyms, fake word origins, and even a few misconceptions about nonverbal communication.
10. Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden
An acronym is a type of abbreviation that takes the initial letters of a series of words and pronounces them as one single word, as in, for example, NASA or NATO. And here’s a fun fact for you: if the letters in the new word are pronounced individually instead of a single word, as in FBI or KFC, for example, that would be an initialism, not an acronym.
But back to our main point, there is a belief that the word “golf” is also an acronym, which stands for “gentlemen only, ladies forbidden.” It sounds plausible, since, traditionally, women were discouraged from taking part in the sport, but not only is it false, it is based on an old joke that got repeated so often that people started taking it as fact.
As a general rule, English acronyms are a relatively recent practice that has only been around for a century-and-a-half or so. Therefore, if the word is older than that, chances are that it’s not an acronym, and the word “golf” has been around for 600 years, at least. The earliest written mention we have of it comes from an act of King James II from 1457, where he actually banned it because he felt it discouraged people from practicing archery.
As to the word’s actual origins, those are a bit murkier. Some say it is derived from a Scottish word, others from a Dutch word. We just know that it’s not an acronym.
9. The Rednecks of Blair Mountain
Another word with an uncertain origin is “redneck,” used in a derogatory way synonymous with “yokel” or “hillbilly.” On one hand, the word “redneck” has a great origin story that connects it to the Battle of Blair Mountain, a notorious and violent event that, to this day, still represents the largest labor uprising in United States history. On the other hand, the story isn’t entirely accurate.
In August 1921, around 10,000 miners from West Virginia clashed with lawmen and strikebreakers who were there to prevent their attempts to unionize. This was part of a larger series of labor conflicts that occurred during the late 19th-early 20th century known as the Coal Wars.
The striking miners wore red bandannas around their necks and became known as the “Red Neck Army,” and the men themselves were, eventually, referred to simply as rednecks. It is quite a compelling tale, and all of it is true except for the part about it being the origin of the word “redneck” which goes back farther than the Battle of Blair Mountain.
As we said at the start, we’re unsure where the word “redneck” comes from, but we do know that the Oxford English Dictionary contains usages of it dated to decades before the labor uprising, even going as far back as the late-19th century.
8. Putting the “Crap” in “Crapper”
While we’re on the subject of fake word origins that have stuck around simply because people like the story behind them, let’s talk about the words “crap” and “crapper,” both supposedly named after the inventor of the flush toilet, Thomas Crapper.
This is a two-pronged myth. The first false notion is that Thomas Crapper invented the flush toilet. He didn’t. It’s true that he was a real plumber who later opened his own company and that he held several patents related to plumbing, but none of them were quite as grandiose as the flush toilet system. Sir John Harrington was the first to describe the flush toilet all the way back in 1596, but he never actually built it. Then, Alexander Cummings was the first to receive a patent for it in 1775. Both of them were active centuries before Thomas Crapper, who operated his company during the late 19th century.
As for the word “crap,” that one is even older, and it could come from medieval Latin, Old French, or even Dutch, as they all had similar-sounding words. The connection between “crap” and Thomas Crapper was made in 1969 by author Wallace Reyburn, who wrote the satirical book Flushed with Pride, so it seems like this is another case of people taking a joke and accepting it as fact.
7. The Spanish “Lisp”
This is a myth that most people will come across if they study Spanish long enough. There is a notion that there once was a Spanish king, usually named Ferdinand, who spoke with a lisp. Wanting to suck up to the king, his courtiers began imitating him and, before you know it, the entire country started speaking like him, and that’s how the so-called Spanish lisp appeared.
Once again, we have a myth that must be debunked on two fronts. The first is the very existence of the Spanish lisp. A lisp is a speech impediment and to imply that an entire nation can share a collective verbal disorder is nonsensical. There are some differences between how certain European Spanish and Latin American Spanish words are pronounced, but these are simple variations in language like you would also find between British and American English.
Then there’s the story of the lisping king. No such Spanish monarch has ever been positively identified. The closest we have comes courtesy of 14th-century historian Pedro López de Ayala, who wrote of King Peter the Cruel of Castile and Leon that he spoke “with a slight lisp.” There is, however, no mention that anyone ever mimicked him, let alone the entire kingdom.
6. Start Spreading the NEWS
We move on to another fake acronym, the word “news,” which, bizarrely enough, has not one, but two false explanations. Some say that it stands for “north, east, west, and south” because it brings you information from all over the world. Others say that it actually stands for “notable events, weather, and sports”.
Neither one is true, in fact. “News” doesn’t stand for anything. It is simply meant to be the plural of the word “new” and it dates back all the way to the 14th century. The plural form was used in order to refer to “new things,” inspired by the French word nouvelles and the German neues.
5. The 420 California Code
Many groups of people have private languages, codes, and other ways of communicating with each other in secret. It can be anything from a complicated cipher to a simple reference that only a select few would understand. Nowadays, everyone and their grandma knows that “420” is a weed term referring to smoking pot. It has become so pervasive in pop culture that April 20 is even the unofficial holiday that celebrates all things cannabis.
But there was a time when the term was much more mysterious. It was meant to be a secret, after all. The most credible origin of the story traces it to a group of high school stoners called “Waldos” who attended San Rafael High in California in 1971. “420 Louis,” as the code was originally, signified their plan to meet up at 4:20 pm in front of the school’s Louis Pasteur statue to relax with a quick doobie or whatever the kids were calling it in those days. Eventually, the term was shortened simply to “420” and it became widely used by their extended circle of friends. This happened to include a few members of the Grateful Dead, who further disseminated the usage of the term among their legions of fans known as deadheads.
It wasn’t until almost two decades later, in 1990, that High Times magazine told the story of “420” to the world at large…except that they got it wrong because they claimed that “420” referred to the California police code for smoking pot…and that’s not true. Or, alternatively, the state penal code for smoking pot. Which, again, is not true. That particular penal code, which does exist, refers to unlawfully obstructing a person from entering public land. It wasn’t until 1997 that some of those former Waldos contacted High Times to get the story straight but, by then, the myth had firmly planted roots.
4. Freezing Monkey Balls
We’ve already examined a few incorrect origins of words, but what about an idiom? If, for example, you were to find yourself shivering in subzero temperatures, you might exclaim that it’s “cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey.” It’s a great expression and it even has a great origin story. During the Age of Sail, brass monkeys were indented metal trays used on ships to stack cannonballs in a pyramid shape. However, when it got really cold, the brass would contract more than the iron cannonballs, and the latter would come tumbling down all over the deck.
Unfortunately, although it is a compelling story, it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. For starters, ships didn’t store their cannonballs on deck, exposed to the elements, where they would rust. They had special lockers for them. Even if they did, they certainly would not have stacked them in a precarious pyramid shape that would have likely crumbled while passing even over a gentle wave. And even if they did all of that, for whatever reason, physics would still spoil the party because the difference between the coefficient of expansion of brass and iron is negligible, not enough to cause the monkey’s balls to tumble.
3. Save Our Syntax
When it comes to nonverbal communication, Morse Code is, without a doubt, one of the most well-known systems. We’ve all heard of it, and even though most of us probably don’t know how to use it, we are still aware of one key phrase: dot dot dot, dash dash dash, dot dot dot – SOS.
It has been the international distress signal for over a hundred years. Sure, nowadays we have faster and easier ways of signaling for help, but SOS still remains ingrained in the public consciousness. But what does it stand for? “Save our souls” is the most common answer, although “save our ship” is a popular runner-up. But the truth is that SOS doesn’t stand for anything and that was kind of the point. It was a simple, elegant, unmistakable, and recognizable code sequence. It was purposely chosen so that it could be transmitted without pause and repeated every few seconds without the possibility of it being misinterpreted as a different message.
2. Rechristened at Ellis Island
In 1892, the United States opened its first federal immigration station at Ellis Island in New York Harbor, where over 12 million immigrants were processed over the following six decades. Unfortunately, those immigrants lost something very important to them during their passage through Ellis Island – their names. Immigration officials often changed their names to something that sounded more American – Schmidt became Smith, Noblinski became Noble, Weber became Weaver, and so on. Other times they did it because they couldn’t communicate with the immigrants who didn’t speak English or even simply because they couldn’t spell the foreign names. And just like that, with the stroke of a pen, they erased a person’s whole identity. It is a widely-believed story that has been referenced multiple times in media, most famous of all in The Godfather Part II. But is it true?
Out of millions of people, it’s certainly possible that a few might have been altered due to some error, but it was certainly not common practice and government records are there to prove that people came out of Ellis Island with the same names they went in. Many immigrants elected to change their names afterward, in order to fit in more easily.
Contrary to popular belief, Ellis Island employed interpreters for all the major languages to communicate with the immigrants who didn’t speak English. And even if they weren’t around, it still didn’t matter. Officials didn’t need to speak with the immigrants to find out who they were – they had the ship’s manifest log, with everyone’s name already written out. The inspection at Ellis Island was mainly concerned with making sure that the immigrants had their papers in order and that they passed a physical exam.
1. Flippin’ the Bird in Medieval Times
We end our list with a myth about the origins of the most famous and widely-recognized gesture in the world – the middle finger. It is said that it was first used as a taunt by English soldiers after fighting the French at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. If you are up on your medieval warfare, then you would know that, at the time, the English longbow was quite a powerful and menacing weapon, feared throughout the whole of Europe. The French were heavily favored to win that battle and, according to the myth, they intended to cut off the middle fingers of all the captured English soldiers, so they would no longer be able to draw a longbow.
History buffs will be aware that the English gave the French a thorough spanking at the Battle of Agincourt. Not only that, but adding insult to injury, they all waved their middle fingers as the French army retreated to show that they still had their digits firmly attached to their hands.
There are two problems with that story. The first one is practical – nobody would pay to ransom archers who couldn’t fire a longbow. As harsh as it may sound, archers weren’t very high up in the military hierarchy, and archers who couldn’t fight anymore were almost useless. If the French truly intended to cut off their fingers, they would have known that the English wouldn’t want them back.
The second problem is historical. There is plenty of evidence that the middle finger has been around as a rude gesture for a lot longer than Medieval England. Roman historian Tacitus wrote that German tribesmen taunted Roman soldiers with the middle finger. And even before them, Diogenes the philosopher used the same gesture on Demosthenes the orator, way back in 4th century BC Athens. So it seems that people have been insulting each other with the middle finger for thousands of years.