One of my favourite etymologies was that the words "algebra" and "gibberish" came from the same Arabic root of "al-jabr" - "the reunion of broken parts". To anyone who ever struggled with algebra, that seemed completely obvious.
Turns out it wasn't true. I researched it recently, and while that's all correct for the origin of algebra, the origin of gibberish is uncertain, but it's not that.
One of my favourite etymologies was that the words "algebra" and "gibberish" came from the same Arabic root of "al-jabr" - "the reunion of broken parts". To anyone who ever struggled with algebra, that seemed completely obvious.
Turns out it wasn't true. I researched it recently, and while that's all correct for the origin of algebra, the origin of gibberish is uncertain, but it's not that.
Oh, how disappointing! I would love for that to be true. 😂