Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 July 3

= July 3 =

Correct terminology: eponym
What is the correct terminology for when an ordinary, everyday word is named after a person? Examples: the guillotine was named after Dr. Guillotin; pasteurized milk is named for Louis Pasteur. Also, is the common everyday word then supposed to be written in upper-case letters or lower-case letters? Thanks! (64.252.65.146 (talk) 19:46, 3 July 2010 (UTC))


 * Eponym. Capitalization depends on how common it is..."guillotine" for example is so far removed from Dr. Guillotin that it no longer needs to be capitalized. Adam Bishop (talk) 19:51, 3 July 2010 (UTC)


 * The meeting about the boycott was so warm, I wished I'd left my cardigan--the one with the raglan sleeves--at home. (Despite the heat, I was starving; it was a good thing I had a sandwich.  Janet, who'd come right from the gym in a deep green leotard, brought a lunch but had left it in her diesel car.)  The proposed actions were downright draconian.  Approving these ideas would only galvanize the opposition.  I tired of the bunkum, so I yanked the lavaliere microphone off the dunce of a speaker.  Janet restrained me from issuing a jeremiad.  We stalked out past the lawyer with the ludicrous pompadour and the stentorian platitudes.  Rain dripped off the mansard roof and through the wisteria as we crossed the macadam road, thinking only of a two-person saturnalia. --- OtherDave (talk) 00:04, 4 July 2010 (UTC)


 * OK, good point. So, why do some eponyms retain capitalization (examples: Alzheimer's disease, Victorian era, etc.)?  Or are those not considered eponyms, for some reason?  Thanks.   (64.252.65.146 (talk) 01:20, 4 July 2010 (UTC))


 * The Wikipedia article eponym (section: Orthographic conventions) suggests that eponyms retain capitalization if they directly refer to a proper noun. "Alzheimer's disease" and "Graves' disease" begin with a capital letter because they refer to the scientists (James Parkinson and Robert James Graves) who discovered them.  A word is more likely to be lowercase if the word has gained a new meaning and is only related to the name of the original person (e.g., "guillotine" or "pasteurize").162.40.210.142 (talk) 05:55, 4 July 2010 (UTC)


 * A word of clarification: Parkinson's disease was named after James Parkinson, and Alzheimer's disease after Alois Alzheimer. --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   06:05, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Of course there are exceptions to that (i.e. to what 162.40.210.142 wrote). Down syndrome is almost universally capitalized although it is not possessive and so does not refer to Down (as it would if it were called Down's syndrome, but rather is the name of a disease). One sees Hermitian matrices but abelian groups, Lie groups but newtons (the unit of force). And many such words appear in both forms (i.e., with upper- and lowercase initial letter), often evolving over time.&mdash;msh210 &#x2120; 06:48, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Who says? "Down's syndrome" is universal in the UK (see eg here) and does indeed refer to Down. Until now, if I had encountered "Down syndrome" I would have assumed it was a mishearing. --ColinFine (talk) 15:47, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I didn't say Down's syndrome is not used in the U.K. I was talking about Down syndrome.&mdash;msh210 &#x2120; 16:22, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Interesting. Many periods in geology are eponyms such as Jurassic, Kimmeridge, but not Cretaceous. Incidentally, while I am here, can you confirm that geology periods are all nouns by convention? --Senra (talk) 07:50, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Depends on whether you're referring to the period or system, geologists tend to say 'the Jurassic' when talking about the period, but when they say 'a Jurassic sequence' they're talking about the system and it's an adjective. Mikenorton (talk) 08:21, 4 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Not sure what you mean by that. Words like Jurassic, Cretaceous etc are clearly adjectives.  We sometimes use them loosely as if they were nouns ("During the Jurassic, X happened"), but they're really abbreviations for "Jurassic period" etc.  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   08:20, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I am now thoroughly confused. I am trying to correct the capitalisation of the paragraph "The village is on a boulder clay island sitting on a belt of mainly Jurassic, e.g., Kimmeridge, clays running south-west from The Wash. Surrounding the island are flat tracts of land consisting of geologically more recent river gravel, alluvium, and fen deposits. To the east of the area is a south-west running belt of Cretaceous chalk. To the west, again running south-west, is a scarp belt of middle-Jurassic limestone, sandstone, etc.". Is it correct as it now stands? --Senra (talk) 08:45, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Looks good to me. I might have written "...on a belt of mainly Jurassic clays, such as Kimmeridgian, running..." but that's just a stylistic difference.  I noticed that the Jurassic article used adjective forms for stages like Kimmeridgian.  I can easily imagine geologists using "Kimmeridgian" and "Kimmeridge" interchangeably, but it's not a field I know. --- OtherDave (talk) 10:27, 4 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Adjectives denoting geological periods are always capitalised, as far as I'm aware. Your text looks fine to me.  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   10:02, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Acknowledged and thank you --Senra (talk) 10:34, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks to all! Much appreciated! (64.252.65.146 (talk) 19:09, 17 July 2010 (UTC))