Someone reviewed one of my performances recently. It was a very favourable review that started with

"A first time performer at Spoken Worlds, but a seasoned veteran of the Birmingham/Black Country circuit was Bob Hale."

and included the sentence

"But he left his most impressive poem till last, ”Chaos Theory”, from the eponymous second collection of his work."

I know some of you already know what my second collection is called but based solely on that sentence what would you assume the title to be - Chaos Theory or Robert Hale?"

Chaos Theory, for certain. Substitute "similarly-named" for "eponymous" and the reading is clear.

"Chaos Theory", I reckon, as well.

From that sentence, 'Chaos Theory'.

Is that the right answer?

I guess it was just me that found it confusing then. Seemed an odd usage to me. It looks to me as if you could say the "eponymous poem" from the collection Chaos Theory but NOT the eponymous book from the poem Chaos Theory.

Ah well, at least everyone is interpretting it how it was meant. That's good.

Wikipedia has the following. It only refers to objects named after a person, but by analogy I presume it can refer to a book named after a poem. The last sentence suggests that "eponymous" can be used both ways round, though the usage is described as non-standard:

quote:

An eponym is the name of a person, whether real or fictitious, after which a particular place, tribe, era, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named. One who is referred to as eponymous is someone who gives his or her name to something, e.g., Julian, the eponymous owner of the famous restaurant Julian's Castle. A common nonstandard usage is that something eponymous is named after a particular person, e.g., Julian's eponymous restaurant.

I also found the eponym clearly relating to "Chaos Theory."

I have to disagree. Eponymous requires a person's name as part of the title: Bloomers (pants), Thompson (submachine gun), or these examples.

For that sentence to work it would have to be for a book entitled "Robert Hale's Chaos Theory."

quote:

Substitute "similarly-named" for "eponymous" and the reading is clear.

The two words are not synonyms.

I agree with Proof...or even more strictly that it referred to Bob Hale. Here is what dictionary.com says: "1. a person, real or imaginary, from whom something, as a tribe, nation, or place, takes or is said to take its name: Brut, the supposed grandson of Aeneas, is the eponym of the Britons.
2.
a word based on or derived from a person's name."

Now I suppose there could be a poetic license with the term, but I'd think the name of the work to be Bob Hale.

So it wasn't just me!

Is it just me or are we answering two different questions here?

The question I answered was, "what is the intended meaning of this sentence?" If the question had been, "what is the literal meaning of this sentence?" I would have answered differently.

I thought it understood that it was Bob Hale's "Chaos Theory," not the scientific one. Literally, though, I can't argue with Proofreader. Well, I can, and it's usually fun, but I won't this time.

My problem is that the literal meaning is how I interpret it so for me it's just one question.

Well, I think it will be clear to readers of this sentence that the word 'eponymous' is being used to mean "similarly named" rather than any other meaning.

EDIT Oh! Ok, I thought it was clear, but I'd missed the last line of Kalleh's post which suggests there is some ambiguity after all. My mistake, sorry.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Alphabet Soup,

Next thing you know, Asa Lovejoy will be after me, too.

quote:

Literally, though, I can't argue with Proofreader.

And, me, either.

Yes, I knew what they meant. However,while not wanting to be Strunk and Whitish about it, I don't see it as the correct usage of the word.

Well that's good. That means I can revert to my fomer postion, that people will understand the sentence (despite its attempts to trick them into thinking it means somethng else. )

In popular music, eponomymous albums are named after the bands themselves. I would have assumed that like the white album being called 'The Beatles', the poetry book was just called 'Bob Hale'.

I thought the nym bit in eponymous meant name.

Drat

quote:

Originally posted by Graham Nice:
In popular music, eponomymous albums are named after the bands themselves. I would have assumed that like the white album being called 'The Beatles', the poetry book was just called 'Bob Hale'.

I thought the nym bit in eponymous meant name.

That's how I read the sentence - the only problem being that it's w
rong. The book, and I should know () is called Chaos Theory.

Unlikely, I know, in a review, but what if the writer hadn't mentioned your name? The sentence you give doesn't use it. Would you still assume the book was called "Bob Hale"?

I would say that eponymous would normally apply to a name mentioned in the sentence. Since the name of the poem is given as "Chaos Theory" I'd deduce the title of the book from that.

Every dic def of the word says it has to derive from the name of a person (real or fictitious). "Chaos Theory" doesn't fit that def. This is a prime example of MUrphy's Law. Not really, but there's another eponym.

I thiink the reviewer should have chosen another expression. Even tho one can figure out he must mean 'Chaos Theory', I would have tripped over 'eponymous', looking for a 'nym'. Good expository writing should be smooth & clear.