No Herculean Ruling On The UPS And Downs Of Eponyms

The Court of Peeves, Irks & Crotchets resumes its autumn assizes with a petition from William H. Painter of Las Vegas. He asks a declaratory ruling on the capitalization of eponyms. With deference to Mr. Painter, a favorite correspondent, the court declines.

An eponym is a word derived from someone's name. For example, the adjective "herculean" derives from the mighty Hercules of Greek and Roman myth. The question put to the court is, should "herculean" be capitalized? To which the court replies, It depends. Depends on what? Depends on which dictionary you're using today.

Merriam-Webster uppercases "herculean." Random House likes "herculean" down. Merriam-Webster lowercases "stoic." Random House likes it up. It's "Stygian" darkness at Random House, "stygian" darkness at Webster's.

The court can discover no bright-line rule. The mythic "Gordian" knot, named for the peasant king of Phrygia, is always capitalized. But if we are to capitalize Gordian, why do we lowercase "draconian"? The word derives from Draco, the severe Athenian lawmaker.

As a general proposition, eponymous plant names are down. It's wistaria, named for Caspar Wistar, and amaryllis, named for one of Virgil's shepherd maidens. Semiprecious stones follow the same pattern. It's amazonite and rhinestone, named for the rivers. The element titanium, named for the Greek giant, is down; so is neptunium, named after the mythical god of the seas.

Mr. Painter offers as Exhibit A an abbreviated list of eponyms that begins with Achilles' heel and Alzheimer's disease and runs on through Gila monster and Ponzi scheme, to quisling and voltage. There must be hundreds of capitalized eponyms: Adam's apple, Molotov cocktail, Heimlich maneuver, Maginot line, Gatling gun, Richter scale. There must be hundreds of lowercased ones as well: guillotine, silhouette, pompadour, lesbian, chauvinism, poinsettia, galvanize and balkanize. The list runs on.

The court surmises that some sedulous scholar has attempted to compile a whole glossary of eponyms. Perhaps the author has propounded a stylistic rule on capitalization. The court would be grateful for any advice it can get.

Slow death to the subjunctive

On to other cases on the docket: Carolyn Balthaser of Columbus, Ohio, asks for a simple ruling on "if I were" and "if I was." There is nothing simple about the subjunctive mood; it is dying of its own arcane complexity. This is as simple as the court can get: Use "were" for wishes and for conditions contrary to fact: I wish I were in Scotland tonight. If I were a magician I would turn marbles into diamonds. Otherwise, stick to the dear old indicative.

William Weigl of Troy, Ohio, petitions the court for a ruling on "exact same," as in "Dole said the exact same thing two years ago." The phrase is a redundancy, no doubt about it. In their Dictionary of Contemporary Usage, William and Mary Morris say flatly that the "exact" should be deleted.

The court disagrees. Redundancies have something in common with cholesterol. There are redundancies good and redundancies bad, and "exact same" falls in the harmless class. The intensifying "exact" adds weight and emphasis to "same," and thus raises an otherwise pedestrian sentence ("Dole said the same thing two years ago") to a level that catches a reader's eye.

Careering and careening

Paul A. Rennord of Federal Way, Wash., asks a ruling on "to career," and offers in evidence an article in the Tacoma News Tribune. A woman whose car had been sabotaged was driving her children to church when suddenly "it careered out of control." Did the reporter mean to say the car "careened" out of control?

The reporter had it right. The verb "to career" has an honorable provenance. It derives from the Middle French word for racecourse. By 1647 it had come to mean "to run at full speed," and it still carries that meaning today. (The noun, meaning profession or occupation, didn't appear until 1803.)

While horses and carriages were careering, ships were being careened. They were being tilted on one side for repair of the hull. The verb comes from the Latin "carina," keel or nutshell. We still careen ships and rowboats, but the verb has evolved to convey the idea of swaying. When a motorist weaves from lane to lane and takes a corner at high speed, the car is careening.

Trouble is, most readers today associate "career" only with a profession. The verbal sense of "to run at full speed" has almost disappeared. The court has a premonition that eventually we will read that someone "careered in medicine," but the court will rule on that one when the day arrives.

(Copyright 1996, Universal Press Syndicate)