Have you ever seen Prufrocks used as an eponym? I see that it is not on wordcrafter's list. I just read this hilarious article in the NY Times today using the word. The article is wonderful...and so true! I have seen people order the most horrendously calorific foods, with a diet coke!
I'm not sure about calling the usage here an Eponym. I've certainly heard groups of middle aged men of a certain type called Prufrocks. It's that oh so careful conformance to the social norm, marked only by occasional introspection when alone on the beach. Since most of them live nowhere near the beach, they are not likely to be challenged by such danger.
But I digress. I find his usuage to be more self-disparaging than eponymous.
Pooterish is definitely an eponym, and what a great one at that.
I don't want to get into nitpicking about what is eponymous, but calling oneself a Prufrock is merely identifying with that sad little man. Saying that some is prufrockian or that their behavior is prufrockish would definitely be eponymous. But it doesn't have the (joonesayqua -- I CAN'T SPELL FRENCH) of Pooterish.
Prufrockian ... refers to the outlook of an aging, inhibited man who is too afraid of life, of himself and of what people would say and too fastidious to dare, to act. His acting had to do with potential erotic encounters. He asked of his own unpursued ventures: "Do I dare disturb the universe?"
I had a Prufrockian moment when my editor scheduled a recent "light" column I had written before September 11 and which had been filed until a more appropriate moment. - Martin E. Marty, Christian Century, Dec 5, 2001
