I'm sure false etymology posts aren't like actually more common than any other type of misinformation on this website, it just happens to be a type of misinformation I'm better at spotting and a type of misinformation that shows up in the type of posts people I follow tend to reblog. but dang false etymology posts sure are common
tips for spotting false etymology:
if you happen to know what common greek and latin roots mean you can spot someone mistranslating them, which comes in handy very often
normal sounding words are almost never coined as acronyms. if someone claims something is an acronym you should literally always fact check it
sometimes the story presented by a proposed etymology falls apart if you like. think about it. why would a hypothetical continent be named after an animal speculated to not live there? why would an idiom's original form be something that very obviously sounds like something you'd say as a comeback to the version everyone already knows?
that one happens enough to get its own numbered point on this list, if someone claims a common expression is the "short version" of another older phrase that means the opposite thing they are either lying or uncritically repeating something they saw on tumblr once. you almost don't even need to fact check this, you can just assume they're wrong
