A false etymology, sometimes called folk etymology – although the last term is a technical term in linguistics – is a popularly held but false belief about the origin or derivation of a specific word. Such etymologies have the feel of urban legends, can be much more colorful and fanciful than the typical etymologies found in dictionaries involving stories of unusual practices in particular subcultures. Many recent examples are "backronyms", as in snob, posh for "port outward, starboard homeward". Erroneous etymologies can exist for many reasons; some are reasonable interpretations of the evidence. For a given word there may have been many serious attempts by scholars to propose etymologies based on the best information available at the time, these can be modified or rejected as linguistic scholarship advances; the results of medieval etymology, for example, were plausible given the insights available at the time, but have been rejected by modern linguists. The etymologies of humanist scholars in the early modern period began to produce more reliable results, but many of their hypotheses have been superseded.

Other false etymologies are the result of specious and untrustworthy claims made by individuals, such as the unfounded claims made by Daniel Cassidy that hundreds of common English words such as baloney and bunkum derive from the Irish language. Some etymologies are part of urban legends, seem to respond to a general taste for the surprising, counter-intuitive and scandalous. One common example has to do with the phrase rule of thumb, meaning "a rough guideline". An urban legend has it that the phrase refers to an old English law under which a man could beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb. In the United States, some of these scandalous legends have had to do with slavery; the "discovery" of these alleged etymologies is believed by those who circulate them to draw attention to racist attitudes embedded in ordinary discourse. On one occasion, the use of the word niggardly led to the resignation of a US public official because it sounded similar to the unrelated word nigger. Ghil'ad Zuckermann proposes a clear-cut distinction between Derivational-Only Popular Etymology and Generative Popular Etymology: "DOPE consists of etymological reanalysis of a pre-existent lexical item The DOPE producer is applying his/her Apollonian Tendency, the wish to describe and create order with unfamiliar information or new experience, the craving for meaningfulness."

DOPE is "merely passive", "mistaken derivation, where there is a rationalization ex postfacto." GPE, on the other hand, involves the introduction of a new sense or a new lexical item – see, for example, Phono-semantic matching. Richard Lederer, Spook Etymology on the Internet Popular Fallacies – the Nonsense Nine

The Jerusalem Botanical Gardens planned as successor to the National Botanic Garden of Israel on Mount Scopus which still exists as a separate entity, is located in the neighborhood of Nayot in Jerusalem, on the southeastern edge of the Givat Ram campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The garden is arranged in phytogeographic sections, featuring flora of various regions around the world; the Jerusalem Botanical Gardens opened to the public in 1985. The tropical conservatory opened in 1986 and the South Africa section was planted in 1989; the Hank Greenspan Entrance Plaza, Dvorsky Visitors’ Center and restaurant were built in 1990. Plans for the first National Botanic Garden of Israel, on a plot of land purchased on Mount Scopus in 1926, were drawn up by Alexander Eig, chairman of the Botany Department of the Hebrew University, based on the flora of the Land of Israel from Mount Lebanon to the desert. Planting began in 1931; the botanical gardens on Mount Scopus were the first home of the Biblical Zoo.

In 1948, in the 1947–1949 Palestine war, access to Mount Scopus and the university campus was cut off from the rest of Israel, it was decided to create a new Botanical Garden near the Jewish National and University Library, on the new campus of the Hebrew University in Givat Ram in western Jerusalem. The new Botanical Garden, including a unique collection of Coniferae, was opened in 1954, soon after the establishment of Givat Ram campus. In 1962, a rocky hill in the southeastern corner of the campus was planted with conifers from North America; that year, Michael Avishai was appointed scientific director of the gardens. Many of the trees were raised from his private seed collection. Budgeting was a serious problem until 1975, when the Society of Friends of the Botanical Gardens was established and the garden became a joint project of the university, the Jerusalem Municipality and the Jewish National Fund. A scientific board was appointed, architect Shlomo Aronson was commissioned to plan the layout.

In 1981, the Garden Association was founded, a board of executives appointed. The garden was opened to the public in 1985. In 1994, it separated from the Hebrew University, has been managed by the Botanical Garden Association since 1996; the garden's Japanese section contains over 150 bonsai trees, the largest concentrated collection of bonsai trees in the world. Birdwatchers have identified 46 species of birds; the 500-meter long "Bible Path" is planted with most of the 70 species that scientists have identified as some of the 400 types of plants mentioned in the Bible. One of the goals of the garden is to create a living gene bank to protect endangered plants in Israel and the region as a whole. List of botanical gardens National Botanic Garden of Israel Wildlife of Israel Tourism in Israel Official website of the botanical garden in Givat Ram Official website of the botanical garden in Mount Scopus Jerusalem Botanical Garden blossoms with flora JBG Pictures

The Metropolitan Club is a private club in Washington D. C. founded in 1863. It is known for being one of the most prestigious and exclusive clubs in the nation, together with the Knickerbocker Club in New York and the Somerset Club in Boston; the Metropolitan Club has reciprocal agreements with: Jockey Club Knickerbocker Club Cercle Royal du Parc Circolo della Caccia Boodle's Brooks’s Jockey Club für Österreich Nuevo Club Círculo de Armas Somerset Club Tokyo Club Australian Club. John J. Pershing, General of the Armies Theodore Roosevelt, President, 1858–1919 Franklin D. Roosevelt, President, 1882-1945 Henry White and one of the signers of the Treaty of Versailles. Joseph C. Grew, Ambassador, 1880–1965 Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State Robert McNamara, Defense Secretary, President of the World Bank George Dewey, Admiral of the Navy, 1937-1917 William Tecumseh Sherman, General of the Army Livingston T. Merchant, Ambassador, 1903–1976 William Howard Taft and Chief Justice, 1857–1930 Ulysses S. Grant, General of the Army, 1822-1885 J. P. Morgan, Financier, 1837–1913 John Hay, Secretary of State, 1838–1905 George C.

Marshall, Secretary of State, 1880–1959 Count Arnaud de Borchgrave, Journalist, 1926–2015 John F. Kennedy, President, 1917-1963 Salmon P. Chase, Treasury Secretary and Chief of Justice, 1808-1873 James L. Holloway III, Admiral, 1922-2019 Elihu Root, Secretary of State, 1845–1937 James W. Wadsworth, Senator, 1877–1952 John Sherman, Senator James V. Forrestal, Defense Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. Treasury Secretary John J. McCloy, Chairman of the World Bank John Baker, Businessman John Sherman, Senator Kichisaburo Nomura, Japanese Ambassador Spencer M. Clark, Superintendent of the National Currency Bureau Lucius Eugene Chittenden, Register of the Treasury Edward Jordan, Solicitor of the Treasury James Lorimer Graham Jr. Attorney Viscomte Henri de Sibour, Architect George Peabody Wetmore, Governor of Rhode Island John E. Pillsbury, Rear Admiral Philander Chase Knox, Secretary of State George Washington Riggs, Banker T. Coleman du Pont, Senator George Washington Vanderbilt II, Art Collector John Lorimer Worden, Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter, Admiral William Wilson Corcoran and Art Collector Nicholas Longworth III, Speaker of the House Arthur MacArthur Jr.

General John McAllister Schofield, Secretary of War William Henry Fitzhugh Lee, Confederate General and US Congressman John Lee Carroll, Governor of Maryland Jerome H. Kidder and Astronomer William Crowninshield Endicott, Secretary of War Francis Beverly Biddle, Attorney General and Nuremberg Judge Francis G. Newlands, Senator Edward Fitzgerald Beale, Ambassador and Surveyor Alfred Thayer Mahan and Naval Theorist George Bancroft and Statesman Charles Glover Jr. Banker Nelson Appleton Miles, General The club was established in 1863, it moved into its own building located at 1700 H Street NW in 1883. That building, designed by the architects Gray and Page, was destroyed in a fire in 1904; the architectural firm of Heins & LaFarge was responsible for the design of the current building. Construction of it was started in 1906 and completed in 1908, it has been listed on the District of Columbia Inventory of Historic Sites since 1964 and it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995.

Metropolitan Club membership was men-only until 1988, when the club's governing board voted to accept women members following a Supreme Court ruling upholding a New York law mandating women membership at private clubs with more than 400 members."The Metropolitan Club is one of Washington's oldest and most valued private institutions. Since its founding in 1863, at the height of the Civil War, by six Treasury Department officials, it has pursued its primary goal of furthering "literary, mutual improvement, social purposes." Today, nearly 150 years after its founding, the Club continues to attract distinguished members from around the world. The Metropolitan Club's proximity to the White House and other icons of the nation's capital has made it a destination for many local and international leaders, including nearly every U. S. President since Abraham Lincoln, its location and dedication to a tradition of social civility provide members with a haven from the bustle of Washington's professional life, while offering amenities associated with contemporary urban living."

"Writings of Walter Lippmann", broadcast from the Metropolitan Club from C-SPAN's American Writers