` :::Actually, I think it is a spelling issue, with the folk etymologies following the chosen spelling post hoc, in typical Welsh fashion (cf. Beddgelert, which many local people will swear is named after the dog, rather than the other way round). Everyone knows that it's the word represented by the sound  (not, for example, , ``tar``), but disagrees on how to write it and what it means. It seems awfully unlikely that one person might talk about the tar-track, another about the swine-track, and another about the hotel-track, and in just such as way as to get the three confused. No, this has folk etymology written all over it.   `