h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>>...it would be perfectly right to call Dave Brubeck the eponymous
leader of the quartet that bears his name. <<

No, no, no. That suggests he took his name from the group.
Eponymous is a give not a take.
Eponymous does not work both ways.
Chicken and egg.

The only possible exception might be someone taking a false name or
given a nickname because they had become closely identified with the
name of a group or some activity.

Like Meat Loaf, who was often called Mister Loaf or just Meat.
Not his real name of course, it was originally the name of the band.

Or Minnesota Fats, or Muddy Waters, or Tiger Woods.



~jwf~

<>

i think you'll find you are wrong there

check out the titles for the rocky horror picture show

meatloaf is an actor

he later became the singer of bat out of hell and was still called meatloaf

now iggy pop and alice cooper, you would have been right

But Wiki gives his real name and a full bio which suggests he was
indeed using the stage name Meatloaf well before his Bat Outa Hell
band days. I should have used a better example of someone who has
taken on (or been given) a name for some activity they are best
known for. Like the ubiquitous Sparks from the radio room.
Or maybe Bomber Harris.


~jwf~

PS:
Wiki does not say which came first, the band name or his:

>> In Los Angeles, he formed his first band, Meat Loaf Soul. During the recording of their first song, Meat Loaf hit a note so high that he managed to blow a fuse on the recording monitor; he was immediately offered three recording contracts, which he turned down. Meat Loaf Soul's first gig was in Huntington Beach at the Cave, opening for Them, Van Morrison's band. <<


~jwf~

"Bomber" Harris. Queen Mum unveiled a statue of him on the very same day celebrating the rocket engine that got us to the moon got cancelled. V2, Peenemünde.

big missconception there

'bomber' harris got his nick name from his diving style and the fact he was allways getting kicked out of public swimming pools

Mystery solved!
>>
GALLERY: I've been told the name Meat Loaf comes from those
football days.
MEAT LOAF: Yeah, it's a nickname I got around 1961. My own name
is boring. I was never called by my real name, because in the South
they call people by their intials a lot, and mine are M.L. But when I
introduced myself as "M.L." they'd always call me "Mel". So later
I stuck with Meat Loaf.
<<

from: http://www.jimsteinman.com/gallery1.htm


~jwf~

Stick the of end wrong the got you've ~jwf~ afraid I'm.

Eponymous does not mean someone takes their name *from* something. It means they have given their name *to* something, e.g. a quartet, an epic, or (in ancient Assyria) the year when they ruled.

victorian era???

All Americans being completely Bushed???

>> Eponymous does not mean someone takes their name *from* something. It means they have given their name *to* something...<<

Hello. Hello.
That's what I've been saying!
From my post 16981 above:
>>
No, no, no. That suggests he took his name from the group.
Eponymous is a give not a take.
Eponymous does not work both ways.
Chicken and egg.
<<

Sheesh!
~jwf~

Barrier of a common language interfering here. I still don't understand you.

I said it's OK to call Dave Brubeck the eponymous leader of the group that bears his name.

You said 'No, no, no. That suggests he took his name from the group.'

Cripes Kate!

Dave Brubeck was Dave Brubeck before there was a DBQ.
He gave his name to the group. It is eponymous. He isn't.
He was not named for the group; it was named for him.
It is his eponymous group. He already was Dave Brubeck,

At least that's my understanding.
When a thing, like a group or a gadget or a widget, is named
for its inventor or creator it is eponymous.

And when a person is given a name, a nickname, based on some
identifying aspect of their occupation, appearance or taste, then
that name 'could' be said to be eponymous; ie: Sparks,
Four-eyes, Stilts, Sticks, Blade or Two-Gun.

But it doesn't work two ways. Drum sticks are not named for a
drummer with the nickname Sticks, but Sticks the drummer is
named for his drumsticks. In which case he is eponymously named
Sticks. The sticks were already sticks, just as Dave Brubeck was
already named Dave Brubeck.

Like I said, it's a chicken and egg thing. Everybody knows that there
were eggs long before there was anything like chickens. Fish, reptiles,
dinosaurs and even earlier birds laid eggs long before any one ever
thought of raising chickens.


~jwf~

You've confused me now, too. Doesn't that all mean that eponymous would be a "take, not a give", rather than the reverse which you said first?

Oh dear...
Give is the opposite of take of course.
And like Nelson's telescope it's a question of perspective.

No wait, that was more a question of which eye he used.
I meant to offer an example of which end of the telescope is viewed.
One end's bigger and the other's littler. The subject (or object) remains
the same but the emphasis shifts.

Trouble is, when I start thinking of perspectives in a four dimensional
whirled, I get hung up on the Southern Cross.


~jwf~

If there's a meaning in there, I'm too tired to look for it right now.

Yeah, me too.

It's gone all sorta like when you say a word over and over and over until
it starts to sound like a nonsense word and makes no sense at all.

If it helps at all, I will promise never to use the word eponymous ever again.
Never was sure why it had a in it anyway.


~jwf~

Oh er!

What have I started with an innocent comment about the word titular.

It all came from seeing it used in next weeks print version of Radio Times (UK) in relation to Dirk Gently (Thursday 16th 9pm) in which Stephen Mangan stars as the titular detective.

t.

Dirk Gently... of the eponymous Detective Agency.
That explains it then. A distortion of reality complicated
by divine interventions from assorted Nordic gods.

~jwf~

>> It's gone all sorta like when you say a word over and over and over until
it starts to sound like a nonsense word and makes no sense at all. <<

Have you ever done that?

Say a word a dozen or more times. Just keep repeating it out loud.
Slow or fast, change up the speed and the rate and perhaps the volume
and enunciation. And after a dozen or more times it begins to lose all
its meaning. It just becomes a noise, a meaningless sound, and the
auditory system is quite unable to make any sense of it.

Try a simple word like 'quite'.
Quite. Quite. Quite. Quite. Quite. Quite. Quite. Quite. Quite.
Quite. Quite. Quite. ... Quite. Quite. Quite.

It's all quite silly really. Quite right too.
Quite quickly the word loses quite a bit of its meaning.
Quite a few will begin to feel a sense of being quite disoriented
and disassociated. Quite like deja vu in that way. You'll be quite
surprised to hear yourself asking what does quite really mean.
It's quite amazing. Quite so. Yes, quite.

Another good one is sonorous.


~jwf~