• Square Singer
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        fedilink
        17 months ago

        Sure, the etymology is completely different (Ritz was derived from the name of a hotel), but the meaning, spelling and pronounciation are almost the same.

        But on the other hand, the etymology of a youth word is often much more fuzzy than one might expect.

        Someone and their friend group start using a term, that then mostly spreads orally, it then someone downstream starts to write the term (using a spelling that might or might not reflect the original etymology. And then, when the word becomes really popular (and might go through different spellings and pronounciations) some linguist takes an educated guess to find an etymology.

        Since we don’t know the person who invented “rizz”, it might also well be, that that person listened to the cover of “Putting on the Ritz” by Taco and started using that term.