The derivation from 'goblin + Fremlin' is widespread, but there is also a variation which I rather like, which says the first airman to see (and nmame) a gremlin was rreading Grimm's Fairy Tales while drinking his Fremlin's beer.
Jacqueline
--- On Fri, 3/10/08, kaligrafr <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> From: kaligrafr <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Info About Gremlins?
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Date: Friday, 3 October, 2008, 5:58 PM
> Aloha,
>
> It's clear that the term "Gremlin" came into
> use during the early 20th
> century,
> even though earlier lore about the broad category of
> faeries includes
> beings
> with particular affinities for technology, making, and
> handicrafts. And
> it looks
> like the term arose somewhere in the community of British
> military pilots
> and/or those with ties to that community.
>
> Later, during WWII, the term and the being was disseminated
> widely through
> popular culture mass media, including a children's
> story by Roald Dahl,
> that
> story led to cartoon art from the Walt Disney studio,
> animated cartoons
> from
> the Warner Bros studio, and, no doubt, the typical
> organizational folkloric
> transmission/elaboration process of the wartime military.
>
> For instance, I probably picked up the notion of gremlins
> from watching
> those
> Warner Bros cartoons on TV as a kid.
>
> As for the term itself, I find myself favoring this
> derivation:
>
> <<Although today's word first emerged during
> World War II, evidence
> suggests a
> predecessor was in circulation among the RAF a bit earlier.
> In the 1920s
> it was
> used to refer to anyone saddled with a menial task but that
> sense never
> quite
> caught on. Charles Graves wrote in 'The Thin Blue
> Line' (1941) that the
> word
> referred to goblins that clambered out of Fremlin beer
> bottles, a
> popular beer
> among RAF pilots in India and the Middle East before World
> War II. Get it?
> Goblin + Fremlin = gremlin. No one has proposed a more
> convincing or
> authoritative
> explanation.>>
>
> --at Lycosiq beta
>
> From:
> http://www.yourdictionary.com/wotd/wotd.pl?date=2005-12-0
>
> Yes, this is persuasive, not conclusive. But there is a
> rare English
> surname,
> "Fremlin." They were brewers before and during
> WWII. And coining a new
> term by combining part of one that rhymes with the
> corresponding part of
> the other and maintaining the second word part is typical.
>
> Thanks for the help so far. Any further observations or
> suggestions?
>
> Musing The Gremlins Are Messing With Tales Of Their
> Origins! Rose,
>
> Pitch
