Cypriot false etymologies (and how to avoid them)

It's a warm summer evening and you sit down with your friends to watch football. You spot that a certain player doesn't perform that well. You exclaim "εν κουτσιά τίποτε τούτος" ("this guy doesn't get anything right"). A friend of yours chugs down the rest of his beer and gives off a gleeful smile. When you ask him what's wrong with his face, he spurts out what he intended to say all along: "ρε, ήξερες ότι το 'κουτσιώ' εν που το 'good shot';" ("dude did you know 'κουτσιώ' comes from 'good shot'?"). You look at his general direction with a thousand yard stare. A feeling of emptiness overtakes you; you are hollow inside. This was only the 1000th time someone told you this "fact". The thing is however that it's not even a fact. You pray to whatever linguistics gods may be out there to smite your friend.

This is a prime example of a "paretymology” or popular false etymology. As the second term suggests, it's a word that is given an etymology which is false, but is widely believed by the public, and it's usually a result of superficial phonological similarities. "Κουτσιώ" does sound like how a Cypriot would say "good shot" with a thick accent, but it's incorrect. The real etymology of the word is onomatopoetic i.e. it mimics a sound that's semantically connected. Specifically, it mimics the sound of wood smacking from a traditional game called "λιγγρίν" where the goal is exactly that.

Cypriot Greek is full of such false etymologies:

- βέρικον (a variety of grape): supposedly because some Brit tasted it and exclaimed "very good"; in reality from the imported Italian variety "Berici"

- δισπιρκώ (to feel annoyed): supposedly from English "despair"; in reality from the middle French cognate of that, "desperar" or another Romance language

- σικκιρτώ (to feel uncomfortable/exasperated): supposedly from the English phrase "sick and tired"; in reality from the Turkish verb "sıkıldım" (to feel bored/grow tired of something)

- αγγρίζω (to anger someone): supposedly from the English "angry"; in reality from a near-identical ancient Greek word (ἀγρίζω)

- αμπάλατος (inconsiderate/stupid person): supposedly from the English "unbalanced"; in reality from the Arabic "balid" (in turn from the older version of the word "balada") which also means “stupid” or from Greek “αναπάλωτος” (“unwielding, unwaivering”)

- παμπούλα (lump/skin bump): supposedly from the English "bubble"; in reality from the medieval Greek "βομβυλίς", itself onomatopoetic from the sound it makes when popped

- μουσιουπέττης (unlucky person/jinxed): supposedly from the English expression "miss a bet"; in reality from Ottoman Turkish "musibet" with the same meaning as the Cypriot word

- πόξυλλικκιν (a beating): supposedly from the English "boxing" and the Turkish suffix "-lik"; in reality from the Cypriot word "πόξυλος" (stiff) and the Turkish suffix "-lik"

- τσαέρα (chair): supposedly from the English "chair"; in reality from its middle French cognate "chaere" (ironically itself from ancient Greek “καθέδρα” via Latin “cathedra”)

One thing you'll notice is that all these incorrect root words have is that they all come from English. This is natural for two reasons: a) the English are the most recent foreign rulers of Cyprus, and loanwords often come via the languages of foreign elites who come in contact with the island and b) it's typically the only foreign language the average Cypriot knows. The caveat, of course, is that the English didn't rule over the island that long or had a prominent enough cultural impact in order for words of the language to enter Cypriot Greek lexicon in such an abundance. A more obvious caveat is that these words occur in traditional poetry and other writing by people who didn't use to possess fluency in English, or even in older manuscripts, long before the British arrived on the island.

That isn't to say English words didn't enter Cypriot Greek at all. Many mostly modern concepts pertaining to technology, administration and law are commonly occurring in Cypriot Greek in their English forms. For example, "κουγκρίν" from "concrete", "άμπουλα" from "ambulance", and a bunch of car parts. And this is a good segue into the next topic.

How do you spot a false etymology? For starters, if the source of information is your friend whose most intellectually challenging activity for the day was planning how many chugs he would need down his beer, then you should probably approach that information with skepticism. But jokes aside, the most obvious telltale signs are:

1. The level of elaborateness of the etymology:

If it sounds needlessly complicated to express a simple idea e.g. "miss a bet" sounds an awfully elaborate way for a simple notion like "jinx".

2. Overlooking phonological disparities:

False etymologies will generally focus on broader phonological similarities, but they will ignore important differences in the process which would easily disprove them. For example, why on earth would "τσαέρα" not be pronounced as "τσιαέρα" to match the English starting "ch", when Cypriot Greek has had this phoneme for over 5 centuries?

3. Having a very charitable semantic matching:

Oftentimes false etymologies will have semantic similarities or match exactly. Other times, they will stretch the semantic definition of a word (or phrase) to make the etymology happen. For example, yes, "βέρικον" is a pretty nice grape, but I don't think anyone waited around for a British bloke to come and taste it so that they can finally name the damn thing. And even if the incident was funny enough to literally change the way Cypriots called it, one single local incident is hardly enough to change the way the entire island-wide population called it.

There you have it: a guide on how not to make the same silly mistake over and over again. If you have any more of these false etymologies feel free to share them. If you have them, but think that you can actually prove these ones are legit - please don't.