« Let's Hope This Is False | Main | Timing Is Everything » Still Snapping24 May 2007 10:15 pm I like this guy: I’m a high school student in Oakland, California. I have zero qualifications to write about anything of importance besides the fact that I have a computer, internet access and spend too much time reading. I am Mickey Kaus’ Worst Nightmare. This is smart, too. I think the site would be better were it nymous (is that a word?) and it's also easier to build an audience if you post more often. That said, good work anonymous whippersnapper! Comments (19)
Presumably you mean onymous. I guess? 
You're definitely not the enfant terrible anymore.
That would be "onymous" If you want to create an English adjective here to serve as a de-negated "an-onymous". "Onyma" is Greek for "name". That said, I've never understood what knowing the true name of an author adds or takes away from an argument. He's right or he's wrong, interestingly or otherwise, none of which is the least affected by whoever he or she may be. A German scholar once wasted a lifetime proving that the works attributed to Homer were not, in fact, written by Homer, but by another person of the same name. Yikes!
Nick, I think it reads exactly like the blog of a bright high school student.
Clearly Yglesias just likes this guy because he shows a certain, ah...Yglesian tendency in the domain of word choice: ...US special fores fidgeting side by side with Iranian troops... Now "fores" for "forces" is just a typo, but "fidgeting" for "fighting"? That's classic Yglesias style!
Among MY's virtues, a readiness to promote those less famous than himself is not the least of them. Nor the least characteristic -- altho exactly why will have to await my essay on Yglesiasism that all of you are so anxiously awaiting.
Matt, i think the word you're looking for is "eponymous" which is what your blog has been in every on of its incarnations. To burst the bubble, my name is Matt Zeitlin. I have no need to be anonymous , everyone should know who writes my unqualified screeds. And the pressures of being a high school student make constant posting sorta difficult. But thanks a lot man, whip it good!
Matt, you've missed previous subtitles
"the word you're looking for is "eponymous" which is what your blog has been" no, "eponymous" is *not* what his blog has been. It is what *he* has been, in virtue of having the blog named after him. Look in a dictionary, okay? The original bearer of the name is the eponymous thing. Whatever gets named after the original bearer is not eponymous. The Monroe Doctrine was named after its eponymous author. The novel "Moby Dick" is named after the eponymous whale. Washington, D.C. was named after the eponymous President. Got that? The city, the novel, and the doctrine are *not* eponymous. The President, the Whale, and the other President *are* eponymous. Christ, kid--don't make *all* of MY's mistakes, okay?
coach: You might want to get a dictionary published after 1912 or whatever. From the Concise Oxford's definition of eponymous: 1 (of a person) giving their name to something. 2 (of a thing) named after a particular person. Also see Merriam-Webster's.
It's awesome, by the way, how the vehemence and bitterness of a rant about language is in inverse proportion to the chance of the rant actually being right.
Holy shit--it's Nick Zeitlin's little brother!
Haha, yes, even in the great meritocracy of the internet, I'm stil "nick zeitlin's little brother." So it goes, Dave, how do you know my wonderful brother. I'm seeing him this weekend, so I can pass along any greeting or fair wishes.
coach -- way to be! Let's hear it for pedantic pricks!
Thanks, Christopher M., "Eponymous: of, relating to, or being an eponym Eponym: 2 : a name (as of a drug or a disease) based on or derived from an eponym" Think those through for a little while, and you'll find that they agree with what I said, and disagree with what you said. The person *for whom* the thing is named is eponymous. And the name itself might be eponymous by the second sense. But the objected named does not fall under either sense they admit. Also see the most recent edition of the OED, which was published many decades after 1912. It gives a good range of citations for "eponymous"; all of them work as I said, none of them work the other way, and it does not recognize the converse sense y'all are defending. The Shorter OED? Who knew? They make concessions to illiteracy. But not the real OED. And not the Merriam-Websters that you link to. Hi Adam! glad you're enjoying it!
I notice that the Concise Oxford also says "comprise" can be used to mean "compose". So they are clearly on the permissive side of the usage issue. Look, I'm not denying that "eponymous" could *come* to mean "named after something else". Given enough years and enough ignorance, language can change in all sorts of ways. Yglesias and Zeitlin are likely to be bellwethers of future fashion in this regard. But there's also some point to using language carefully, and to making distinctions. If you don't like people using "comprised" when they mean "composed", you might want to avoid using "eponymous" when you mean "named after". I mean, it strikes me as especially weird to resurrect a very rare, antiquarian word and *then* misuse it. What's the point of that? But we'll come back in 50 years and see where things stand then. Probably the Matts will have won by then.
Maybe Zeitlin just likes the word fidget: "James has a pretty good point, of course Edwards should not be so *fidgety* and uncomfortable around “Americans,” buy I think James, distracted by his deservedly righteous angers is missing a few points." http://whippersnapper.wordpress.com
Other Matt- In case you're still reading this: I live around the corner from him. (In NY, if he can be said to live here.) And my ex-roommates worked with him at McKinsey. And I was in his class at Harvard, but I didn't really know him then. Congrats to the other brother, btw.
Comments closed June 07, 2007. |
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Heads in the Sand
This can't be the creation of a high school student can it?
Posted by Nick Kaufman | May 24, 2007 10:38 PM