Like many good things, it began with a conversation over a pint in a pub: did you know that “posh” doesn’t – as is commonly held – derive from an acronym?
Admittedly, it was a very nerdy pub conversation, but there is a prevalent and erroneous belief that “posh” originally stood for “Port Out, Starboard Home”, referring to the most desirable, and so most expensive, cabins on ships to and from India. In fact, it came from “posh” meaning “dandy” – ie a stylish fellow – which in turn derives from a slang term for money.
Such incorrect but popularly-believed etymologies of words abound in English, from the origins of profanity to acronyms and everything in between. The weirdest false etymology in English has to be the reasonable but incorrect belief that the words “isle” and “island” are related – astonishingly, these two words have completely different origins.
No doubt this is all of interest to some English students and of course fans of Susie Dent, but what’s the relevance to skepticism? It turns out some fringe believers, conspiracy theorists and even religions are rather fond of folk etymologies…
“Ego”
A recent episode of true-crime podcast My Favorite Murder highlighted the group Love Has Won – aka The Galactic Federation of Light – which hit the headlines in 2021 due to the discovery that the group had been keeping its leader’s mummified corpse for an unspecified time after her death. The group was told that “ego” meant “Edging God Out”, although it isn’t clear whether or not the former group leader – “Mother God” Amy Carlson – was actually claiming this was the word’s origin, or its hidden meaning, or merely a rhetorical tool.
The concept is used widely and is repeated by people from Deepak Chopra to the Unity Church, and may have been popularised by motivational speaker Dr Wayne Dyer, who spoke often of this concept in talks, and may have been the source of Amy Carlson’s use of ego, as his book Inspiration came out around the same time she founded Love Has Won.
Unsurprisingly, the word actually derives from the Latin, meaning “I myself”.
“History”
You can probably guess that “history” comes from an ancient Greek or Latin source – because most of English does – in this case from the Greek “historia” via Latin and French, with the original Greek meaning “account, record, narrative”.
Many groups like to play around with the word “history”, often metaphorically, it seems to be a popularly held misconception, and at least one religious group seems to embrace it literally, with guru Sathya Sai Baba and followers saying “History means “His story” – stories of God.”
“Government”
If you’ve spent time on conspiracy forums or wider social media you’ve probably come across this one:
Government literally means mind control. Govern means to control. Ment comes from the latin word Mens, which translates into mind, specifically intention, brain, intellect, faculties, understanding. Government = mind control. We dont need no thought control. [sic throughout]
They are at least trying here, with an effort to go back to the Latin, but the correct etymology is actually from the Latin “gubernare”, which means “to direct, rule, guide, govern”.
If the conspiracy theorist etymology was correct, and any word with the “-ment” suffix referred to the mind, would nourishment be feeding the brain and not the body? Can any home improvement only take place in the imagination? Is all human achievement destined to be a mere figment? Are figments themselves just soft, sweet fruits of the mind?
“Money”
English words often have pretty peculiar origins, and the root of all evil the word “money” is via French, Latin, and the goddess Juno Moneta, whose temple was the site of the ancient Roman mint:
Initially, “moneta” referred specifically to the place where coins were minted. Over time, however, the meaning of the word broadened to include the coins themselves and eventually the concept of money as a medium of exchange.
Currency, also from Latin, is a more recent arrival in English and refers to the “that which is current as a medium of exchange”, from the Latin meaning “condition of flowing”.
English, like all languages, developed – and continues to develop – organically and through usage, as a result of generational changes, technological advancement, contact with other cultures, simplification, semantic bleaching and a host of other factors. While governing bodies can certainly attempt to control language, the success of a prescriptive approach can be most easily seen in the Académie Française’s largely ineffectual alternatives to creeping Anglicisation: from “le weekend” to “le brunch” the French people have voted with their every conversation.
That doesn’t deter some from believing otherwise, of course. Authors on truth-seeking website Stillness in the Storm (tag-line: An Agent of Conscious Evolution), see secret groups making conscious choices about which words the wider English-speaking public use:
the Dark Occultists, the Cabal, use the systems of nature as a blueprint for various control systems on Earth. This is not arbitrary or done at random. They use these words and concepts because at a very deep subconscious level we respond to them and make the associations in our minds with the true concepts which support them.
For example the word money breaks down to mon eye, mono being the latin word for one. The One Eye, which is a deeply embedded archetypal symbol for consciousness and unity thinking.”
Author Justin Deschamps then goes on to cite a seminar by PL Chang, who gets the etymology of “currency” right but then ascribes its use in English as a choice made by “them”:
The word currency originated from the Latin word currens, the present participle of currere, which means “to run.” Now, why would they based [sic] the word currency on a Latin word that does not have much to do with paper money or coin?
Chang goes on to say it is actually about energy:
To find the covert or hidden definition of currency, you need to use phonetics and separate the word currency into two words. When spoken out loud, the word currency sounds similar to “current-sea.” What does a current do in a river? It flows to the sea!
Chang goes on a long word-game tangent involving “chi”, “riverbanks” and “river”-“banks”, but for those who haven’t the inclination to read it all, the conclusion is that the use of “currency” in English is a clear indicator that the New World Order want to steal your energy using currency. Though as with all conspiracy theories, why do “they” bother to give us these clues so we can see behind the curtain? Come to think of it, is the idea of someone wealthy deriving benefit from other people’s labour unusual enough to require a grand linguistic conspiracy? Anyway, speaking of conspiracy theories…
“Conspiracy theory”
Sometimes it is more than just a word that gets a silly etymology – it’s a whole phrase.
There is a very commonly-held idea that the phrase “conspiracy theory”, with all its negative connotations, was propagated by the CIA to discredit anyone who believed in such a theory in the 1960s. Some hold that it was invented by the CIA, others accept that it was already a phrase in use, but believe that the CIA weaponised it to “counter criticism of the Warren Report”. Others manage to hold both views: that “they coined the phrase”, while also accepting that it was in fact in use since the 1800s.
The term’s existence prior to the 1960s is easy to demonstrate with the briefest Google Books search. The claim that it only acquired negative connotations more recently, which is repeated widely – even in part by those debunking the myth or conspiracy theory around its origins – seems also to be incorrect.
Mike Caulfield tracked down the earliest known use of the term in print, from The New York Times in 1863, and he notes that even then its use had a pejorative implication:
You’ll note here that conspiracy theory — almost ten years before the other examples historians often note — is used much how we would use it now. It’s a put down, an assertion that the complexity someone else sees is a result of ignorance or worse.
Language is ever changing, but more than 150 years later, human nature is still the same.
