Be good to your mother
The more I read about language, the more I am fascinated by the intricate development paths that have led to the way we express ourselves today. My awe at the complexity of language is conveniently matched however, with the disarming realisation that much of language development arises from the reliable constants of oral communication: mondegreens and myths.
It was with comforting justification then, that I tonight learned about the etymology of the word "tip" and the vaguely related synonyms "insure" and "ensure". The prompt was (as is frighteningly common) a pub trivia question that didn't sit right. The question innocently asked, "What does the word 'tip', to pay for good service, stand for?".
Naturally, the immediate reaction (it's just a word, it doesn't stand for anything) is quickly overcome by the competitive urgency of pub trivia. "Oh I know this", we think. "It's something to do with 'payment'", or "wouldn't it be 'thanks' for something?" you might say. The fact is, the question is only based on an urban myth, that the word tip is derived from the phrase "to insure promptness".
That "tip" would stand for "to insure promptness" is another example of the many backronyms that crop up in our jargon infested world. As with many of the other backronyms, the expansion belies its fabrication. How exactly, does the word "insure" fit in that phrase in the first place?
To my Australian middle class ears, the correct term in that phrase would be "ensure". Indeed, when we tip (with consideration paid to the fact that the practice is less common in this country that other English speaking countries) we are not actually holding a sum of money as insurance for an outcome, but rather we are trusting that our gesture makes certain that service is provided. Of course, this interpretation is neglecting the fact that a tip is generally given in reward, rather than in anticipation, but allow the excursion for now. My experience vaguely suggests that I might insure a less favourable outcome by guaranteeing a compensation, while I would ensure that the less favourable outcome never occurs in the first place by invoking some protection. When pushed, I'd be happy to allow ensure be used in place of insure (naively because of British and American spelling discrepancies) but I'm uncomfortable being coerced the other way.
As it turns out, the usage notes in the American Heritage Dictionary give weight to a similar, but critically distinct interpretation. "Assure", "ensure", and "insure" all mean "to make secure or certain" they say, but insure and ensure do not apply when specifically putting a person's mind at ease. Ensure and insure are more or less interchangeable, except that in American usage, ensure is not used when referring to financial risk.
In other words, the language we use to convey our thoughts (even thoughts relating to the language itself!) is not in any way guaranteed (insured?) to maintain integrity and consistency. Instead, its development is subject to the same inventiveness and fiction that it affords us in our everyday communication.
By the way, for a well-researched and well-structured approach, the Snopes article on the tip backronym is well worth an attentive read.