3 ms·
French drains should be part of the "Unexpectedly Eponymous" list https://notes.rolandcrosby.com/posts/unexpectedly-eponymous/ https://notes.rolandcrosby.com/p
by Rygian 2y ago
French drains should be part of the "Unexpectedly Eponymous" list
https://notes.rolandcrosby.com/posts/unexpectedly-eponymous/ https://notes.rolandcrosby.com/posts/unexpectedly-eponymous/
- ec109685 2y agoI don’t think it qualifies. This drain is intentionally named after Mr. French.
- sbradford26 2y agoThe would be the whole reason of it making the list. Most people would think it was named after the country or something not Mr. French.
- ec109685 2y agoGot it. Price club and Page rank are better examples because they make sense and don’t feel arbitrary even if the name had no relation.
- zeristor 2y agoThe coding language Julia; perhaps Ada should have been named Lovelace then?
- smt88 2y agoJulia doesn't count because it wasn't named after a person. Even then, neither of those would fit the theme of the list above because they aren't named after their inventors (even though Ada is technically an eponym).
- lucideer 2y agoI think narrowing the theme of the list to just inventors is more an accidental result of the author's selection rather than their intended theme - eponyms seems to be the theme.
- tialaramex 2y agoThe point is they're unexpected. Elo is a great example, people tend to assume this chess rating system is an abbreviation, but it's somebody's name. It's not unexpected that Ada is named after Ada. It is unexpected that PageRank is named after a person named Page rather than web pages. It may seem less unexpected if you happen to know who Larry Page is, but the same could be said for Glen Bell, if you knew who he was then it's "obvious" why the business is named Taco Bell right?
- belval 2y agoFun fact, in the French speaking part of Canada, "French drain" are fully translated to "Drain français" because of this quirk even though we don't usually translate proper nouns.
- philistine 2y agoBen ken toé, un drain français n'a rien à voir avec les français.
- lucideer 2y agoGreat site! (though Unilever seems like a stretch, & gasoline is extremely contested). This reminds me, my partner recently bought me some "Coffey Whiskey" because I like coffee, which led to my own discovery of another one of these (albeit one requiring a spelling oversight).
- walthamstow 2y agoWow what a brilliant blog post. Full of OMG moments, not least Max Factor!
- gilleain 2y agoAh, like Arkhan Land and his Land Raider.
- billbrown 2y agoGood point—added to the Wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_eponyms_(A%E2%80%93K)#F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_eponyms_(A%E2%80%93K)#...
- xg15 2y agoSpearheaded of course by the late E. P. Onymous, may he rest in peace.