Dear Stephen,

> I have been doing a quick check on the precise meaning of
> "folk etymology". It seems that the technical use of the
> term is not exactly what I thought it was. The correct term
> for an etymology not based on philology and morphology is
> actually "fake etymology", which must be even worse from
> your point of view. I think it would be good to employ
> something like "hermeneutical etymology" or "exegetical
> etymology" for this kind of activity found throughout
> Buddhist commentorial literature.

For a long time I used to refer to the word derivations of
the commentators as "ersatz etymologies". But after sweating
over a couple of thick tomes by Matilal and Kunjunni Raja on
Indian theories of grammar, I now think that "etymology"
should not be used at all as a translation of nirukta /
nirutta. Nowadays I simply refer to the commentators' word
derivations as "word derivations". :-)

The advantage of this is that it not only avoids the
judgmental taint of adjectives like "folk", "fake" and
"ersatz", but it also allows one to say, "The commentators
derived the word 'araha.m' in five ways....", rather than
"The commentators gave five etymologies for araha.m...." The
latter statement is really a solecism when one considers the
very specific and well-established meaning of "etymology" in
the context of historical philology.

Best wishes,

Dhammanando