From Uncyclopedia, the content-free encyclopedia.

		This page needs to be fixed up. Note to tagger: If possible, please include a more specific parameter to help categorise just what about the article needs to be fixed. Please rewrite or improve this article so that it is higher quality. This may include making spelling, grammar, or punctuation corrections, reorganising the content, or deleting bad content and clichés. (Peer review is available here) If this page is not fixed in 30 days, it may become a candidate for deletion.

“Oh, the history of the word "quote" is long and interesting, and so much so that I would rather drink stricnine than talk about it.”
~ Oscar Wilde on etymology

“Dude, check it out. Just take a word, and say it over and over again. Like, I dunno, about. About about about about about about about about about about about about about about. Now, think about "about". Isn't that fucking trippy? Whoa!”
~ Oscar Wilde on on saying a word so many times sequentially that it loses its inherent meaning temporarily

This article may be Overly American. Brits may not understand humor, only humour. Canadians and Australians may not understand anything at all. Don't not attempt to remedy this.

edit Overview

PTR-334R: Has nothing to do with etymology, but rest assured you probably don't, either

Etymology as a word did not exist until Wikipedia made its first appearance on the internet in 1873. One of Wikipedia's first rules was that every article must have a section on Etymology (though no one knew what it meant until Jimmy Wales made it up) which must contain only facts. The rest of the article is free to contain as many lies, unsourced opinions and pseudo-scientific clap-trap as the "Wiki Editors" deem fit. Thus most articles continue to consist of total fabrication with the exception that some clever cunt editor will have researched where the word actually came from even though the same clever cunt has got no idea what it means.

Etymology is not to be confused with entymology, which is of vastly more use. While an entymologist will be able to tell you how to avoid killer bees, an etymologist will be all to happy to tell you the long and interesting history of killer and bee in the English language.

They will also delight in explaining when and why they were first put together, although most etymologists are lazy and will simply fall back on the ubiquitous "no one really knows for sure." Surprisingly, since no one wants to hear an etymologist explain anything, especially not something so useless and mind-sedating as the history of words, no one will even get to utter "no one really knows for sure.'

Let us continue tackling this important topic in earnest.

edit The Importance of Being Earnest

Very interested in the history of the phrase "avoiding being clubbed to death"

Since English is widely regarded as the most wonderous, and certainly best, language in the world (narrowly edging out Moroccan Arabic, Tegalug, and Schwabish), etymologists almost exclusively study the bastard descdendant of German, Norwegian, and French of all things. Since this means most etymologists are native speakers of other languages, this adds, as Carol Schopfenhauertag puts it in his cook book A Salute to Truffles, a "rich and creamy sauce made of misunderstandings, misspellings, and outright inaccuracies that taste so good when braised with honey mustard and cilantro."

Indeed, most non-native English etymology books about English are downright unreadable. A classic example is Dutch waffle-mistress Katerina Dumonde's 1997 publication Een Geschiedenis van het Engels. Consider the following passage:

"The word bread has not been given accidentally, Dutch in origin, but in fact to us. It was a complete accident we bread call."

English etymologists agree that this passage, and thousands of other nearly unreadable tracts of poor grammar, inept verbal agreement, and outright ignorance bring great discredit to their field. Said noted Harvard etymologist Sir Anthony Helping Verb:

edit The Etymology of Etymology

This helpful program can tell you that you spelled hepatitis incorrectly, but not its history, and certainly not that you just contracted it

Etymology is a portmanteau of the German word etymos, which means "to speak in a boring manner" and the suffix -ology, which is Albanian for "about a great many things." So, hypothetically, etymology means "word smithery", though literally it means "about a great many things, to speak (of them) in a boring manner, (and the study of words)."

The French claim to have not only invented English etymology, but the best recipe for crepes you've ever gosh darn heard of.

Etymology is pronounced ayit-EE-m'ol-whoah-tschgee, based on the word's original, parallel history as a Lackawahanna Indian word meaning "delicious maize pudding." That word, which cannot be correctly pronounced and was only signed using the "extended palm rubbed around the stomach" gesture, was agitoeyahmollowahghrhunawalhaghlowanhahgee.

Etymologists are evenly divided, 30 percent to 70 percent, on whether etymology itself is a result of the portmanteau, or whether they mean neologism, or whether they wasted six years getting an MA in English, or whether the Indians really knew how to make a mean pudding out of maize.

edit See Also

• Yummy yummy yummy I've got love in my tummy
• dog
• Ed Asner