Posted by Neredbojias on 06/06/07 02:45

On Mon, 04 Jun 2007 12:57:19 GMT Dan scribed:

> On Jun 4, 5:03 am, dorayme <doraymeRidT...@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
>
>> Yes, indeed. I think there is a general phenomena under which
>> this comes. Many names, for instance, had their origins in words
>> that had natural meaning, connotations from occupations, places
>> of birth, and other things. It is rare to even think of these
>> "natural" meanings with proper names, they no longer "mean"
>> anything, their meaning is exhausted in acting as labels to refer
>> to individuals, their origins long forgotten.
>
> And it's happened in the other direction too; lots of words derive
> from proper names, like "boycott" (after somebody named Boycott who
> was, er, boycotted) and "chauvanist" (I don't think I spelled that
> right... Mozilla's spellchecker is underlining it... but then again,
> Mozilla's spellchecker is underlining "spellchecker" too) is after
> some French politician named "Chauvan" (which I may have misspelled
> too). (I can't look anything up... Wikipedia is having server
> problems! And of course I'm too lazy to get up and grab my
> dictionary.)

And don't forget "Balzac" who relieved us of the need for goin' 'round
saying "scrotum" all the time...

--
Neredbojias
He who laughs last sounds like an idiot.

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