Posted by Eugene Volokh:
Careful With That Etymology:
I just got a political e-mail that began with:
Where did the word "picnic" comes from?
It was typical to have a picnic on a Friday evening in Oklahoma.
The word was short for "pick a nigger" to lynch. They would lynch a
Black male and cut off body parts as souvenirs. This went on every
weekend in this country, and it was all across the county. . . .
This set my myth-detection antennae a-quiverin', and sure enough this
is yet another usage myth, much like the claims that "nitty-gritty"
originally referred to debris (including dead bodies) in the holds of
slave ships, or that "handicapped" stems from handicapped people
supposedly begging with their caps in their hands. In fact, [1]Snopes
says it's a myth, and the dictionaries I've checked note a perfectly
innocent etymology for the word.
This reminds me of two tips I thought I'd pass along:
(1) Lots of the most interesting etymological claims that are bandied
about on the Net and in the popular press are bunk. (The old chestnut
about "fuck" being an acronym from "for unlawful carnal knowledge" is
another example.) I don't know why this is especially common for
etymological assertions, but that's what I've found. But don't trust
any etymological claims -- especially the interesting ones -- unless
you verify them in a reputable dictionary (and maybe not even then).
(2) More broadly, if you're tempted to forward such a claim --
etymological or not -- check it out. Check it on [2]Snopes. Check it
in a reference work; there are plenty available for free online. And
this is especially so if you're making a broader political point, as
my correspondent was. Why ruin your credibility at the outset, by
passing along long-debunked errors?
References
1. http://www.snopes.com/language/offense/picnic.htm
2. http://www.snopes.com/
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