For many years there was a butcher in Truro called Mutton and an antique dealer in Plymouth called Robin Bastard; the Bastards (pronounced bus'tard) are an old Westcountry family.
This is the reverse of what the New Scientist called nominative determinism, which is where your name dictates your actions. My favourite example is a case where nominative determinism has obviously gone slightly wrong. There is a company that manufactures lifts (elevators), that goes by the name of Schindler.
[QUOTE]Originally posted by tsuwm: it could be a struggle. Richard Lederer presented 'aptronym' to the masses[QUOTE]
Lederer strikes me as a legend in his own mind. Perhaps his name is an inaptonym?
In terms of actual usage the two are quite close, at least in terms of google-hits. And most of the differential is because, as tsuwm has noted, the makers of on-line dictionaries steal egregiously from one another. If, to elimimate that factor, you exclude sites that have the word "dictionary", you get
55 google-hits for aptonym -dictionary 65 google-hits for aptronym -dictionary
The numbers are close, and neither is massive. In terms of settled usage, the jury is still out.
And, this brings me back to a question I have posed on this board from time to time--when is a word considered a word? The purists would say only when it is published in OED. But, then, what about words like "epicaricacy" that for some reason or another were dropped from dictionaries? Or what about new words that are being developed, such as Web or Internet? Then, if we don't just take OED as our source, what do we take? Certainly, we have all questioned the online Grandiloquent Dictionary, but should we? Should we, for example, accept Lederer but not Mrs. Byrnes? I don't have the answers, but it is an interesting word discussion.
quote:Originally posted by Kalleh: And, this brings me back to a question I have posed on this board from time to time--when is a word considered a word? The purists would say only when it is published in OED.
In my opinion (which counts for very little, coming from the 'worthless word' corner), the salient question may be: when can a word be considered worthful? You may well be enamored of a word such as 'epicaricacy' or 'phat', but if the word is unknown in your personal mileau (and not in The Dictionary) it can only be classified (or floccinaucinihilipilificated, as it were) as worthless. You may strive to introduce such a word to your environment, and if you are successful you and your peers can use it and be understood; but it's prolly still not in the dictionary. Now you're gonna have to be published, or strangers will say, "that's not a word!" <g>
quote:In my opinion (which counts for very little, coming from the 'worthless word' corner)
Your opinion means a lot; after all, you are somewhat of a celebrity here.
I suppose you make a good point. However, isn't it a shame that certain really good words get lost? I am only picking on "epicaricacy" because we have discussed it lately....but we had to go to German to get a like word because of the disappearance of our perfectly good English word, which appears to have been cited before "schadenfreude."
The Federation Aeronautique Internationale, the world governing body for aviation competitions both full-scale and model, lists one Mr Shatalov as model rocketry co-director at Baikonur cosmodrome. I suspect when one of the huge rockets blew up he did just that!
