Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1873-07-09
ENGLISH NAMES.

Various Names In the English Lam
guase-An Interesting and Highly
Amusing Paper-Verbal Accidents
Art Gallery of Names.
Prof. Sewall hss paper in the NelC Eng
lander on Name Words in the Vernscu.
lsr." Conceiving the language to be a gal
lery of art, Prof. Sewall takes
the name words for the busts and
statutes and portraits contained 10
it, ard goes on to speak Of thea
individually. Let us examine its treasures.
The first samples we should come 10 would
be those in which the name is directly af-
fixed To the object without change: as the
Armstrong gun, Remington rifle, MIME
ball, Argand burner, Drummnnd light,
Mansard roof, Rabbit metal, Baldwin ap-
pie, Graham bread. Prominent natural
objects are often so distinguished, as Hud
son river, Bunker Hill, Delaware
Bay-even TO the stars, as Herschel and
Laverrier. 1t is common to cali q mau's
works by bis name, whether haud-wOIk or
head-wor Thus we do not read the plays
of Shakespeare, the poems of Wordsworth,
the essays of Carlyle-We read Shakespeare,
Wordsworth, Carlyle. We call violin
genuine Anti. A painting is Rubens, 4
Titan, q Turner, q Vandyka, a Murillo.
The temperature is so many degrees
Fahrenheit. A monstrous lie is
Munchaussn. Such as these are in
com on use and greatly enrich the de-
filming power Of the language. In many in
stances of this direct application the thing
which takes the name goes of with it, ana
leaves the man who furnished it forgotten.
Joseph Ignace Guillotine has DISAPPEARED be-
hind the machine he nitrous The droll
s'silhouetts" in our magazines never remind
us of the French Minister of Finance
/. whose logged economy doomed
his name 10 be affixed derisiv- ly to
the cheapest of all portraits. We read of
s'lszsretto" without thinking of Lazarus.
"Musc does not recall the muses., nor does
"Museum," nor "Mosaic." There are even
traditions that the word "derrick" is all
that now remains of one Theodorick,
haDgmau at Tyburn, who long since van
isbed from his CHASTITY stage.
Another class is made up Of that immense
number of names which have received ater-
mination AMI now do duty as adjectives:
Darwinian, Baconisn, Machiavelllsn, Cal
whistle, Copernican, Homeric, Mosaic,
Pauline, NJ hammedan, etc. Carlyle speaks
of Brummellian pollteness. James Russell
Lowell says WorI'swOrthian, Locks, Kan
list, and even POpist. The only
requisites for attaining to this much Of
fame are, first to bring on some new thing
in art, religion, philosophy, literature or
State; and secondly, to bear q name which
will make proGounceable adjective. We
can call stsnza SpenseriaD, TennysOnian,
ADacreoniC; but euphony would go mad
over such terminals as Moore-an, Keas- Y,
South-istic, G9the-aD, LoDgfellow-in Thsc-
keray-ic; however worthy of the honor
those eminent names might be. Some of
these name-adjectiyes have become specif-
csIly appropriated to particular fact, and
have 10 other application; as Fabian policy,
Torriceliian vacuum, Eliz2bethsn age, Ce-
So rean section, Fallopian tubes, Gordian
knot, Justinian code, Napoleonic ideas.
This is common usage amo: g profess
siOnsl men, and for the descriptioI
of scientific facts. The same is true
of the possessive. for example: Napier's
| logarithms, AIchimedes' screw, Hslley's,
! comet, Chambers salt, Bright's disease