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Good Reading : May 2012
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www.goodreadingmagazine.com good reading may 2012 14 May 2012 main book bitE 85 Alzheimer’s surname into word (20th century) A remarkable variety of everyday objects come from the names of the people who invented them or who are closely associated with them. We find them in such areas as clothing (cardigan, leotard, mackintosh), including hats (stetson) and boots (wellingtons), food (garibaldi, pavlova, sandwich), flowers (begonia, dahlia, magnolia), musical instruments (saxophone, sousaphone) and guns (colt, derringer, mauser). Creative people, especially (if they’re famous enough), can have their surname turn into a general word. Film buffs talk about a movie being Hitchcockian, and similar coinages are found in other areas of the arts, such as Dickensian, Mozartian and Turnerian. Language buffs who admire Henry Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage have created no fewer than three adjectives to characterize his approach – Fowlerian, Fowlerish and Fowleresque. Science, in particular, recognises achievements in this way. Think of all the names of physical constants that come from scientists, such as ampere, celsius, hertz, ohm and watt. Many terms in anatomy, physiology and medicine reflect their discoverers, such as the Rolandic and Sylvian fissures in the brain or the Eustachian tube between throat and ear. When diseases are person-named, they are usually shortened. So Ménière’s disease becomes Ménière’s, Parkinson’s disease becomes Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease becomes Alzheimer’s. Derived uses soon follow, as the case of Alzheimer’s shows. The disease was first described by the German pathologist Alois Alzheimer in 1907, and the name was soon used as an adjective in such phrases as Alzheimer patients and Alzheimer sufferers, sometimes with an ’s and sometimes not. By the 1930s, the name of the disease was being abbreviated to Alzheimer’s or (especially in the USA) Alzheimer, even in medical journals. Concern over the effect of the disease grew in the early 2000s, so much so that it became one of the few diseases to be identified by an initial letter: the big A. (The big C – cancer – is another.) Surnames that become common nouns and adjectives don’t have to belong to a real person. English literature has provided several examples of characters who have given their name to a general situation. What would it mean to call someone a Scrooge, a Cinderella, a Girl Friday, a Romeo? In each case the situation described in the original book has been left behind, and the words are even sometimes written without the capital letters. Rather less usual is the use of two surnames together. A Jekyll and Hyde personality. A David and Goliath situation. A Holmes and Watson relationship. There aren’t many of these. Several fields go in for first name plus surname. The world of roses, for example, has hundreds of examples of cultivars named after the whole name of an individual, including such well-known personalities as Cary Grant and Bing Crosby. And we’ll find whole names in such domains as dog breeds (Jack Russell ), ships (USS Ronald Reagan), locomotives (Winston Churchill ), cocktails (Rose Kennedy) and cakes (Sarah Bernhardt). Titles are not ruled out (Earl Grey tea). These do lead to some unusual English sentences: ‘Just smell that Cary Grant’; ‘Would you like some Earl Grey?’; ‘I’ll have two Rose Kennedies.’ The Story of English in 100 Words by David Crystal is published by Profile, rrp $29.99 . The STory of english in 100 Words The story of english in 100 Words looks at 100 words – from wicked, taffeta and billion to dude, robot and watergate – and uses them as starting points to consider the curious ways that the english language has evolved. in this third and final in a series of three extracts, language expert daVid crySTaL looks at the word alzheimer’s, which is derived from alois alzheimer (1864–1915), the german neurologist who in 1907 described the disease that bears his name. Using this word as a springboard, crystal jumps off from it to consider other words that are derived from surnames. by David Crystal 14_bookbite1_c.indd 14 4/4/12 9:42:33 PM
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