Etymograph / Myth vs. record / nitty-gritty
Myth vs. record
nitty-gritty
Every word has its own definition in its root. Some words also carry a story about where they came from. Here is the story, and what the record shows.
The story
An urban legend links the origin of the word to the debris remaining in the holds of slave ships after the slaves had been disembarked, but there is no evidence for this.
The record
Of uncertain origin; said to have been first used by black jazz musicians from the United States, the word is perhaps a reduplication of gritty (“resembling grit”) (ultimately from Proto-Germanic *greutą (“grit”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrewd-) with alteration of the first syllable.