If you’ve seen a meme floating around with the words:
“How old were you when you learned that TAG stands for ‘Touch and Go’?” ...you might want to fact check. As you should with any claim or news story you may cite in the future. This suddenly widespread myth is almost certainly FALSE. Anytime you hear a supposed explanation like this, where the word existed first and someone made up a convenient phrase claiming the word developed from it, chances are it's what linguists call a "bacronym" (sometimes spelled “backronym”). Someone created the reverse acronym "touch and go" after the word (and game) was long in existence. Other bacronyms with false etymologies like this are: - "Constable on Patrol" for "cop" - "Something Posing As Meat" for Spam Sometimes, it's obvious which supposed etymologies are actually back formations. Certainly the people creating and selling Spam didn't mean for it to stand for "Something Posing As Meat". As for "cop", it's a shortening of "copper", meaning "one who cops", from when the verb "to cop" a person meant to catch them. As in the case of "tag", there's another clue. Real acronyms (like SCUBA for "Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) didn't become popular until the 1900s. The word "tag" has been around since the 1700s, most likely originating from the Scottish "tig" (for "touch" or "tap"; in some parts of Europe even the game is still called "tig") which, in turn, is thought to have developed from the Middle English "tek". The Latin “tango” or “tago”, also meaning “touch”, may also be part of its roots. There was a song in the very early 1900s about the Game of Tag which used the phrase “touch and go” in its lyrics. It probably gained some application in speech around that time, but it’s unclear when and in what context arose the birth of the bacronym. As for the resurgence of this most-likely-untrue assertation, it’s difficult to determine an origin, but social media is unquestionably to blame for its popularity boom. History of language gets dusty, but it’s pretty safe to declare this:
Research by R. R. Branstrom. Sources:
https://www.etymonline.com/word/tag
A Way With Words feat. Grant Barrett & Martha Barnette (Podcast and Facebook group). Wayword, Inc. https://www.waywordradio.org
https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/41763/is-tag-named-for-touch-and-go
If anyone has any corrections or something to add, let me know!
