Etienne de Silhouette (silhouette): http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Etienne_De_Silhouette Charles Boycott (boycott): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Boycott Rudolph Diesel (diesel): http://www.dieselduck.ca/library/01 articles/rudolph_diesel.htm Amelia Bloomer (bloomers): http://www.fashion-era.com/rational_dress.htm#Amelia Bloomer 1818-1894 Nicolas Chauvin (chauvinist): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Chauvin Adolphe Sax (saxophone): http://www.biographybase.com/biography/Sax_Adolphe.html Levi Strauss (levi jeans, or levis): http://www.google.com/search?q=levi...CA&sa=X&oi=timeline_result&ct=title&resnum=14 Amerigo Vespucci (America): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerigo_Vespucci Jean Nicot (nicotine): http://www.languedoc-france.info/060600_nicot.htm Still more: John Duns Scotus (dunce) Saint Audrey (tawdry) Anders Celsius (Celsius) Thomas Bowdler (bowdlerize) Gabriel Fahrenheit (Fahrenheit) Joseph Guillotin (guillotine) Mickey Finn (mickey, or Mickey Finn) Sir Robert Peel (bobbies) Louis Braille (Braille) Julius Leotard (leotard) al-Khowarizmi (algorithm) General Henry Shrapnel (shrapnel) Guy Fawkes (guy) Reverend William Archibald Spooner (spoonerism) Anders Dahl (dahlia) Charles Lynch of Virginia (lynching) André Marié Ampére (ampere) Jean Martinet (martinet) Mary I, Queen of England (Bloody Mary) Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (zeppelin) James Watt (watt) H.R. Hertz (hertz) Samuel Maverick (maverick) V.A.I. Quisling (quisling) Augustus Caesar (August) John McAdam (macadam) Georg Simon Ohm (ohm) Joel Poinsett (poinsettia) Count Alessandro Volta (volt) Ambrose Burnside (sideburns) [Add more here, if you like!]
America wasn't named after Vespucci otherwise it would be Vespucci-a Stephen Fry told me. Especially considering he is the only one in the list who hasn't used his surname.
Yes, that theory is covered here, in the link on Amerigo (a/k/a, Americus) Vespucci's wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas#Naming It is also covered here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A42902318 However, Fry's assertion is not the final answer, nor has Amerigo been ruled out or even usurped. Besides, it jostles the rocking chairs of knee-jerk patriots when I mention that America was named after an Italian. This is a highly desirable thing when so many of my fellow 'Muricans affect blueblood airs and call themselves things like Hunter Horn III (an actual person I've met). For whatever reason, many of my compatriot crackers think it more upper-crust (or upper-crack) to have one's country named after a Welshman than an Italian -- particularly in parts of the South in which Sicilians are considered an unpleasant rumor. It is also why, in in parts of Texas and South Carolina, many people openly hated the verbal virtuosity of lower-class upstart, Bill Clinton (their anomosity was positively Fowleresque), yet defended indignantly the silver spoonerisms of one Hunter Bush III. Never mind that Italy was still the throne of intellectual beauty when America was discovered (see Leonardo's "Pieta" and "Vitruvian Man," and the genesis of the madrigal and the motet), and a cultural influence that any sane person would embrace over that of virtually any other nation at the time (Franco-Flemish musicians deserve nearly equal time for the complexity of their multilingual motets). Not terribly logical, and not actually true. See the above reference to the phrase, slip someone a Mickey, and to both August (i.e., Augustus Caesar) and July (Julius Caesar): http://www.infoplease.com/spot/history-of-august.html. See also Sir Robert Peel (bobbies) and Guy Fawkes (guy), not to mention Mary I, the bloody Queen of England -- I could go on, but I feel the point's been made. I might have hunted down more examples, but I like the sound of polysyllabic names, which are often last. Then, too, there are cases in which the apparent last name is a red herring. Leonardo Da Vinci, for example -- Da Vinci merely indicates his town of origin. The proper way to refer to him is as Leonardo (full stop).
Though it's not a common name for an object (yet), I enjoy this one: Stephen Colbert (The Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_Operational_Load_Bearing_External_Resistance_Treadmill#Naming_COLBERT I'm tickled by the notion of an astronaut calling down that he's going to jump on COLBERT for a few minutes. -monkey
Dave said nothing new (nor, apparently, did you) -- he simply asserted that the less popular theory is the correct one. Merely agreeing with a theory that has already been presented isn't particularly interesting (to me, at least), nor is your variation on the repetitive me, too! post. The only thing anyone has proved on this thread is fanboy fealty to Fry -- an engaging and knowledgeable Renaissance wit who deserves appreciation rather than religious awe -- which he himself would probably dismiss. The truth is that Fry is often inexact (as most of us tend to be). I recall wincing at his explanation of hudibrastic rhymes, for example, and other such devices commonly grouped under prosody. (Of course, the mere fact he was explaining prosody to a mass audience on national television -- and being witty in the process -- is testament to his particular strain of genius, which allows him to be so amusing that viewers, mainstream and niche, embrace his didacticism. And then, of course, there was Dork Talk, which ought to be mandatory reading for members of Head-fi and Audio Asylum.) If you investigate the names on my list, you'll discover that most became words due to significant misinformation and/or mischaracterization. The word dunce, for example -- John Duns was anything but that. Sidebar to supe monk: Have you noticed that Colbert resembles Bob from Church of the SubGenius?
Since both Julius and Augustus took on the surname of ceasar it's logical that their first names be used. The other two are slang so no specific nomencalture is really used. And we're talking about place names which are always named after the surname unless it's named after one of the royals.
Thank the Gaseous Vertebrate: an actual conversation at last. You can't expect to apply commonly accepted standards to all place names as if everyone in history -- from kings to accidental explorers -- were working with the same style sheet. Have a look at the American landscape, if you doubt it: Street and place names on every map offer a veritable gumbo of randomly violated rules and colloquial interruptions, which testifies to the chaotic and hasty assertion of place that is America in general (and New York in particular -- famously, there is a single city corner with four street designations and a building at the city's center with four addresses). If the extremely illogical and sprawlingly inclusive English language has taught us nothing else, it's that exceptions are the rule and mistakes become enshrined far more easily than etymologists and grammarians might like. I've also mentioned the practice in Italy of the reverse -- using place names as surnames (Assisi effectively replacing Bernadone in the case of the St. Francis) -- and of first names being used formally. Raphael and Rembrandt, for example: nearly all classic Italian painters are known by their first names, and it is a mistake to refer to Leonardo as Da Vinci. Re the use of first names as a slang-only enterprise in English (let alone, in every conceivable language): You can't dismiss tawdry as slang any more than bloomers should be cited as an example of formal surname adoption. If you really believe the English language is infallably logical in these matters, then I suggest you peruse The Reader over Your Shoulder, by Robert Graves and Alan Hodge. And how exactly does the rule apply to Henry Street in Dublin? Certainly, the rule doesn't apply to the state of Texas: of its two-thousand-plus towns, over four hundred were named after first names. And then there is the Dominican Republic, which is named after St. Dominic. (Lotharinga was named after Lothar I, King of Italy, coincidentally enough, though of course you could use your royal title clause to explain it. Now comes the point at which you might add that the no-first-names rule doesn't apply to saints either -- I'll spare you the effort of making that argument except to remind you that to insist on the idea dogmatically is idealistic at best.) Besides which, America has always been considered the land of unpleasant exceptions. That its very name should emblematize the stereotype is only poetic justice. Remember: The Amerike theory has not been proven and the Amerigo (Americus) theory is older and still preferred. Time might reverse this, but to claim dogmatically that the adoption of Americus is impossible is the linguistic equivalent of British colonialism: a matter of imposed will rather than universal agreement.
Just as a side note: I like the idea of creating a fictional world in which all of the countries are named after the first names and nicknames of people who are powerless, inarticulate and historically obscure. The vast country of Oggia, for example, which would be named after the cyclopian gas station attendant, Fraculae "Oggie" Whorlmalm XXII.
Only too well. ========= Question: If, in Italy, place names were sometimes used interchangeably with surnames, and first names could be used in place of place names (i.e., formally, as in the case of renaissance painters), then what would happen if a King chose to rename a place after a noteworthy place-surnamed person whose birthplace was, in fact, said town? Would he keep the original place name and change its official attribution to that of the noteworthy person's surname, or substitute said person's first name to emphasize the difference? ========= Filed under Why Do I Find This Interesting?: Certain historians have suggested that the name of the city of Florence, Italy was derived not only from a Roman ruler's description of its floral fecundity, but also from a feminization of the male first name, Florentius. This despite the fact that the common female variant of Florentius was actually Florentia. What struck me was the convergence of two ideas: (i) Using someone's first name to denote a place, and (ii) adherence to the idea that land is always referred to in the feminine. Avoidance of issue (ii) might be a logical reason for the predominance of surnames as place names. (Another might be the avoidance of personal trama caused by geographical informality: "Mother, O Mother, do your best to keep me upright! The man in the adjacent cottage has referred to our beloved Morristown as Sam! Oh, do, do smear my scarlet brow with this firkin of allspice ointment! Smear it for several decades, as I am permanently distraught!")
I correct myself, the correct name for that country would be Dubya. And how sad that you have forgotten to include that Louisiana was named after Louis XIV.
Funny ha-ha that you should mention it: I was just belaboring myself about the head with a rubber bladder. A few hundred extra whacks should suffice as penance, wouldn't you bray? I do hope you'll forgive the omission. After all, I've learned to forgive you for Elton, Wisconsin.
Nicely done, and bonus points for keeping to a single sordid theme. (Is there something you're not telling us?) Apparently, you've been reading about my foster parents. (Both were male, but Masoch compensated for this by wearing a leather nun habit for beatings and family portraits.) The most confusing aspect of their child-rearing was their wildly inconsistent approach to discipline.
If you're putting units of measurement in there you're gonna be there all day, they're all pretty much named after someone.
