Since 2005 I have been teaching a one Term introductory course each year on Historical Linguistics at SOAS and enjoying it a lot. The students especially like the coverage of semantic change, loanwords, and borrowing and language contact. One of the (standard) topics in this area that I cover is so-called folk etymology and typically refer to the text book examples like ‘day’s eye’ for ‘daisy’, or ‘cockroach’ that was borrowed from Spanish cucaracha and given a pseudo-etymology in English.
Well today at 7:15pm on ABC news radio I heard a great example that I’d never come across before and will definitely use when I teach the course again. A commentator said:
“The current strength of the Australian dollar it’s all well for investment in the manufacturing sector.”
It took me a minute or so to parse this and figure it out, but clearly what we have is a folk etymology of “it’s all well” in place of augurs well. As the Free Dictionary indicates, this is the intransitive verb use of augur meaning “to be a sign or omen”; the word form entered Middle English from Latin where it meant “one of a group of ancient Roman religious officials who foretold events by observing and interpreting signs and omens”. Wicked innit?
Follow
The term eggcorn has emerged in recent years to distinguish potential folk etymologies which haven’t yet become common usage: see The Eggcorn Database and discussion linked there.
The Eggcorn Database has an entry ‘it all goes well (for)’. I would expect it all goes well for has got a better chance of survival than it’s all well for: the latter isn’t as idiomatic, and doesn’t match the g in it augurs well for.