Everything in this world has its history. So do words. We might think that we know the real meanings of the words and phrases that we use, but, is that really so? Some words live secret lives in front of our eyes as if they were trying to hide where they originally came from. It seems that the deeper we go in searching the etymology of certain words, the more fascinated we tend to be. And the moment of epiphany usually comes quickly: Oh, that’s why they call that and that this way! And thus we enter the magical world of meanings, different word forms, word origins – to put it short, the world of countless possibilities. One of the ways in which we can reveal the secrets that lie behind words is by knowing why they were named so. Sometimes it is easy: Achilles heel, Adam’s apple, the Gordian knot , these almost cliché phrases, or, to be more precise, eponyms, reveal themselves instantly as many of us have heard of them so often. But what with the words we use on a daily basis, not even thinking about what they might have once meant? That’s where the journey begins.
The term eponym was created about a century ago. It is derived form Greek words epi meaning ‘on’ or ‘upon’ and onama meaning name. So an eponym is “Upon a name”, that is, transfer of names.
The following are the examples with their explanations, etymology and interesting accounts that accompany these everyday words.
Food There are many food items that are, actually, eponyms. The stories of their origin are sometimes quite unusual, sometimes exciting, but certainly never ordinary.
Mayonnaise: Port Mahon in Minorca, at one time Portus Magonis, was named after Mago, the younger brother of the Carthaginian general Hannibal, who had planned to devastate Rome in the second Punic War. It became the capital of the Spanish island of Minorca. There's no argument that PortMahon gave its name to mayonnaise. Some say, however, that this sauce was created in 1762 by the chefs of Richelieu to memorialize the victory of the French over the the British. But others say that Due de Richelieu himself prepared this dressing. Richelieu was known as a glutton. The dressing came about, it is said, when Richelieu raided the nearest kitchen and tossed what edibles he could find into one pot. And presto—mayonnaise. A more credible story is that chefs created a dressing in Paris in honor of Richelieu's victory at Port Mahon. They named it Mahonnaise.
Marmelade: A story repeated for centuries says that when Mary Queen of Scots (1542-1587) was out of sorts, the only food that could tempt her was a conserve of oranges, for which she had an inordinate fondness. Hence the name of this jam after the queen's indisposition: Marie malade ("sick Mary"), which, with time, became marmalade.
Praline: There is a story abot the origin of this word and it concerns the chef of Marshal Cesar du Plessis-Praslin (1598-1675), who became the French minister of state in 1652 and who concluded a successful military career upon reaching the the place of field marshal in command of the entire royal army. One story has it that Praslin's chef prepared the sugar-coated praline for King Louis XIV, a dinner guest of the marshal. Another, and one with more authoritative approval, is that the praline had its genesis in the marshal's stomach problems. The marshal liked to nibble almonds, but they gave him heartburn. His chef suggested that if the almonds were browned in boiling water, they would be more easily digested. The result of the chef's ingenuity was a happier marshal, with fewer heartburns, and a confection of sugar-coated almonds that has become quite popular under the name praline.
Pickle: The pickle's provenance can be traced to one William Beukelz or Beukel, a fourteen-century Dutch fisherman who was known as the first to "pickle" food. Though Beukel pickled fish, his name, mispronounced slightly, came to apply to pickled cucumbers. Although most people enjoy biting into a large dill pickle, they don't want to be in a pickle, which is an unpleasant situation. And to be pickled is to be steeped in brine, but a person who's pickled is steeped in something that will not agree with a sobriety test.
Cereal: Ceres, the ancient Roman goddess of agriculture (identified with Greek Demeter), was patroness particularly of grain, or cereal, and plants. The Latin adjective form is cerealis, "relating to Ceres." She was especially the corn goddess.
Clothes Many clothing items are eponyms. Here are the stories about some of them.
Raglan sleeves: Raglan sleeves became well-known during the Crimean War in 1852 because of a coat worn by the commander-in-chief, Lord Raglan. The sleeve made the coat different from others, and it has continued to be stylish to this day.
Tuxedo: The Algonquian word for wolf is p'tukit (pronounced with a silent p) and means "the animal with a round foot." From that Indian word a lake about forty miles from New York City came to be known as Tuxedo Lake. Much of the area surrounding the lake was purchased by Pierre Lorillard, the tobacco heir, and subsequently a fashionable and exclusive resort and residential community was developed called Tuxedo Park. At one lavish affair, a brave aristocrat who disliked the formal "soup and fish" full evening clothes rebelled and wore a tailless jacket. The innovation was startling, but the shortened jacket became an immediate success. The new style was dubbed tuxedo after the name of the place where the garment was first worn. Today many men who appear before a clergyman ready to take his marital vows are dressed in that "wolf's clothing."
Pants/Pantaloons: For decades in England no gentleman would dare be seen wearing what were mockingly called pantaloons. No less a national hero than the Duke of Wellington was refused admittance to a club because he was wearing long pants rather than the breeches and silken hose expected of a member of royalty or another person of high rank. The pants worn in America by almost every man and many women is an abbreviation of pantaloons. The forebear of these articles of dress can be traced to the baggy trousers worn by a character in the Italian commedia dell'arte. A physician had been the patron saint of Venice—San Pantaleone. (The literal meaning is "all lion." Pan means all, and leone is "lion.") Pantaleone in the comedies was an elderly buffoon interested only in lechery, but who was usually outwitted by the women. He always appeared wearing spectacles, one-piece, skintight breeches, and stockings that bloomed out above the knees. The passing years has transmogrified this patron saint of Venice into a lovable but simpleminded character in Italian comedy. With a slight orthographic change to pantaloon, his name was then equated with "clown." The word in plural form (pantaloons) subsequently entered the English language to describe a particular type of trousers. As fashions changed, pantaloons became the name of various types of trousers over the years. In time it was used in the shortened form of pants as the designation for trousers in general.
Knickers: Knickers as a short breeches garment can be credited to Washington Irving—not that he was a clothing stylist, but because his two-volume guide was illustrated with these breeches. Irving wrote a humorous but pompous story of the early life of New York, as told by one of the early settlers. He chose the pseudonym Diedrich Knickerbocker. The book, titled A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, was published in 1809. Although this delightful work became better known by its shorter title, Knickerbocker's History of New York, the short breeches, fitting loosely and gathered at the knee, developed a fashion hold after illustrations by the great comic artist George Cruikshank appeared in a later edition in the 1850s. These breeches were first called knickerbockers, but the name was later shortened to knickers. They became popular as knee pants for young boys, for cyclists, and for outdoor men who play golf, and even for silk bloomers for women. And so knickers were born.
Miscellaneous
Frisbee: One historian maintained that the game began on the Yale campus in 1827 when an undergraduate showed his displeasure at being compelled to attend chapel services by hurling the collection plate through an open door. The flipping of plates caught on (collection plates?), and a new pastime was born. A story that has better credentials cites the drivers of the Frisbie Pie Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut, who, during their lunch breaks, amused themselves by throwing around tin pie plates. With time, this fun activity took hold at Yale University, and then spread to other campuses around the country. The students found it sport to sail these tins, reminiscent of flying saucers, toward one another and then have them hurled back. One way or another, Yale gets the credit for launching the Frisbee toss. The name of the pie company was later emblazoned onto the saucer, which then became known as Frisbee, and the saucers' material changed to plastic. Just about 1950 a certain Fred Morrison introduced on the West Coast a product he called the original "Flyin' Saucer" and hawked his product for seven years. At that time two ingenious entrepreneurs began the manufacture of plastic circular plates and kept the name "Frisbee" to honor the Frisbie Pie Company. By using assembly lines, they were able to produce large quantities of this throwing disk and, in fact, sold more than 100 million of them.
Baedeker: Baedeker, a travel guidebook, is an authoritative work first published inGermany by Karl Baedeker (1801-1859), born in Essen, Germany, the son of a printer and bookseller. He followed his father's footsteps and became a printer with a shop in Coblenz, publishing the first of his famous series of guidebooks, modeled on John Murray's Handbook, in 1839. The book, titled A Rhineland Journey from Basle to Dusseldorf, was immediately successful and was known for its reliability and thoroughness. Baedeker then prepared guidebooks covering other areas, which equally described in detail what a tourist might want to know about the important cities and places of historic interest or questions of cuisine. And so tourists throughout the world felt safer, were more knowledgeable, and were able to enjoy their vacations better with a Baedeker in hand. Baedeker inaugurated the practice of marking with one or more stars the objects and places of interest according to their historic or aesthetic importance, which gave rise to the expression starred in Baedeker. That Baedeker became an international generic term was exemplified by Chekhov when he said, in a letter, "Here I am alone with my thoughts and my Baedeker." Although with the proliferation of travel books over the last century Baedeker is not a word so often heard anymore, it still is an apt (albeit loose) replacement for "guidebook."
Robot: The word robot came from a Czech play, published in 1920 and premiered on stage in Prague in 1921, called R.U.R. The initials stand for Rossum's Universal Robots, a corporation that manufactured robots, mechanical creatures, enslaved to work for human beings. In the play the robots developed the capacity to feel and hate. Eventually, they rebelled, became monsters, turned on their human masters, and overpowered them. The author, Karel Capek (1890-1938), a Czech playwright born in Bohemia, borrowed the word robot from the slavic robota, meaning a forced laborer. The play was extremely popular on both sides of the Atlantic, so much so that the word robot came to be used of any person who was dehumanized because of too much work involving nonproductive tasks or to a person who works automatically without employinginitiative. The word was also applied during World War II to the German "flying bombs" or "Buzz-bombs" sent against England. In the scientific world of today, a robot is used as a term to describe automated apparatus that performs human functions.
As it can be seen from all the examples above, the field of eponyms is certainly full of many interesting things and surprises. The story about eponyms is almost always closely connected to history, a particular person or a specific situation that make it so unique. I am sorry for not being able to include all the beautiful stories I have found as well as all the words that deserve to be here. While preparing this presentation, I noticed that there are surprisingly few books on eponyms, which is more then unfair for such a colourful and exciting language area. In my opinion, this topic is more than motivating for us to go further and reveal , perhaps, some new eponyms, which are still waiting do be discovered.
Taken from:
A New Dictionary of Eponyms, Freeman, S. Morton, Oxford, OUP 1997
