Epistemology
The word "epistemology" is derived from the ancient Greek "epistēmē" meaning "knowledge" and the suffix "-logy", meaning "logical discourse" (derived from the Greek word "logos" meaning "discourse"). It is analogue to the German "Wissenschaftslehre" (literally, theory of science) which was introduced by philosophers Johann Fichte and Bernard Bolzano in the late 18th century. The word first appeared in English in 1847 as a translation of the German in New York's "Eclectic Magazine" review of a philosophical novel by German author Jean Paul:
Folk etymology
The technical term "folk etymology" refers to a change in the form of a word caused by erroneous popular beliefs about its etymology. The English word is a translation of the German term "Volksetymologie", coined by Ernst Förstemann. Förstemann noted that in addition to scientific etymology based on careful study in philology, there exist scholarly but often unsystematic accounts, as well as popular accounts for the history of linguistic forms. Until academic linguists developed comparative philology and described the laws underlying sound changes, the derivation of words was a matter mostly of guess-work. Speculation about the original form of words in turn feeds back into the development of the word and thus becomes a part of a new etymology.