[DC-3]

Standard rule of thumb for the non-linguistically inclined: if a layperson tells you an etymology for a word and it involves a 'flash of inspiration' type moment of synthesis then four out of five times that etymology will be false.

For example, 'Council House And Violent' => chav (British slang for an anti-social lower-class person)

It's wry but it doesn't pass the sniff test. People don't tend to sit around making up words like this and even when they do other people don't adopt them. Words are nearly always born through analogy and common ground, not out of whole cloth.

There's a Wikipedia list of false etymologies in English here [1] (fair warning - a lot of unpleasant words here). A quick read of it should help train ones priors as to whether or not an etymology is likely to be true.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_false_etymologi...

[laurieg]

I completely agree with this. I find that any etymology that has a neat little "just so" story behind it to be very suspect.

In real life words generally get made by pretty obvious metaphors (it's gotta be obvious enough for someone hearing it for the first time to get it), combining two words together or shortening an existing word.

[mssundaram]

Just today I heard that the etymology of swag is "secretly we are gay". It's hilarious and obviously not true. Backronyms are fun though