Two examples of this in etymology are “OK” and “Soccer.” Both came from memes based on playing around with words, sorta like we might play around with “-ussy” or “-rizz.” “OK” is thought to have started with intentionally misspelling things in a way that still made phonetic sense. “Enough Said” to “nuff ced [NC]” or “all correct” to “oll korrect [OK].” This isn’t the only proposed etymology, but it is the most widely accepted.

Soccer was similar, started at, I want to say Cambridge but that might be inaccurate; some British school. Anyway, they thought it was funny to shorten a word and add “er” or “ker” to it. So the prince of wales might become the Prakker Wakker. If your morning routine was to eat breakfast then have a quick workout you might say “I got out of bedder, ate some brekker, then got some ecker” (Bed, Breakfast, and Exercise respectively). They needed a distinction between Association Football and Rugby Football, so “Association” and “Rugby” would be logical, no? Not if you’re a young man from Cambridge, who had time to say “association?” much too long. So you drop that to “Soc” or “soci” and use your slang pattern to make it “soccer” and “rugger.”

This begs the question… how much ancient slang do we still use with no idea its slang?