Most of us dream of a noteworthy legacy -- our 15 minutes of fame spread on to eternity. (Un)luckily for some, the English language is chock-full of eponyms -- proper names that have slipped into general usage as other forms of speech.
My new book "Tawdry Knickers and Other Unfortunate Ways to be Remembered" reveals the dark side of immortality -- a curiously related historical collection of nasty reprobates and unwitting victims of circumstance (90 of them), all of whom have had their names imported into our language in a way that might not have made them happy. The book includes our titular twosome: tawdry (poor, virginal St. Audrey) and knickers (New York blueblood Harmen Knickerbocker) as well as notorious namesakes that we wear (leotard), protest (boycott), and gargle (Listerine). These were all people whose names became a part of our lexicon and most of them weren't happy about it.
To buy the book or read more, visit www.tawdryknickers.com. Otherwise, enjoy the sneak peek.
Tawdry Knickers
Leotard(01 of13)
Leotardn. a close-fitting one-piece garment worn by acrobats and dancersPerhaps the directors of the 1984 Val Kilmer comedy "Top Secret!" had Jules Léotard in mind when they featured a ballerina gracefully leaping from loin to loin in a gauntlet of male dancers, resting each time on their ridiculously exaggerated accoutrement. Léotard was a vainglorious French acrobat -- the first artist to swing from one trapeze to another -- who invented a skin-tight, one-piece garment with long sleeves to allow free movement and to display his “muscles.” As he advised men in his Memoires: “Do you want to be adored by the ladies? ... put on a more natural garb, which does not hide your best features.”
Listerine(02 of13)
Listerinen. an antiseptic solution Single women the world over rightfully curse the men who popularized the phrase often a bridesmaid but never a bride, many not realizing that it was part of a wildly successful advertising campaign for Listerine in the 1920s that warned young ladies that their bad breath might leave them old maids before their “tragic” 30th birthday. Had he still been living, no one would have been cursing louder than eminent British surgeon Baron Joseph Lister, who spent the last years of his life desperately trying to disassociate himself from a product that he neither invented nor endorsed. Over the years, Lister’s namesake has been marketed as everything from a dandruff suppressant, deodorant, and sore throat remedy to gonorrhea treatment, aftershave, and floor cleaner.
Boycott(03 of13)
Boycottn. withdrawal from social or commercial interaction or cooperation with a group, nation, person, etc., intended as a protest or punishment Following the Act of Union (which was not nearly as sexy as it sounds) between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland, Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott served as a ruthless land-agent managing the Irish estates of an absentee British earl. So unwilling was he to treat his tenant farmers fairly that his workers left him, neighbors ignored him, local stores would not serve him, and even the mailman would not deliver to him. Local newspapers began referring to any successful ostracization as “boycotting,” and a lamentable legacy was born.
Sadomasochism(04 of13)
Sadomasochismn. the derivation of pleasure from the infliction of physical or mental pain either on others or on oneself This one’s a tawdry twofer. Though Sigmund Freud ultimately named this unholy union of fetishes, its two root words were coined by another German psychiatrist, Richard von Krafft-Ebing, whose 1886 Psychopathia Sexualis drew inspiration for the forensic terms sadism and masochism from the proper names of two sexually deviant authors -- the Marquis de Sade and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. Sade’s novels explored the libertine pursuits of bestiality, necrophilia, and juvenile rape, while Sacher-Masoch’s 1870 Venus in Furs provided a glimpse into his particular fetish for domination by fur-clad women.
Guillotine(05 of13)
Guillotinen. an instrument used in France (esp. during the Revolution) for beheading, consisting of a heavy knife blade sliding between grooved posts Despite not supporting the death penalty, not advocating public executions, and not himself dying under the blade of his namesake, Joseph-Ignace Guillotin will forever be associated with the sanguinary symbol of the French Reign of Terror. As a physician, he was a champion of a humane alternative to hangings, and his opponents tagged the successful design with his name. He died of natural causes in Paris in 1814, but his children spent many ensuing years unsuccessfully petitioning the French government to formally change the name of the device before eventually changing their own names instead.
Dunce(06 of13)
Duncen. a dull, ignorant person In his own time, brilliant scholar and fourteenth-century philosopher John Duns Scotus was revered for the quiet power and nuanced logic of his arguments, and was a cornerstone of the religious canon for nearly two hundred years. Unfortunately for Scotus, his teachings became viewed as theologically obstructionist during the Renaissance, and his followers -- the Scotists (by then called Dunsmen) -- were increasingly attacked for their unwillingness to accept new scholarship. They railed hopelessly against progress and subsequently became known collectively as “dunses,” a far cry from the intellectual powerhouse of their namesake.
Cooper’s ligaments (aka Cooper’s droopers)(07 of13)
Cooper’s ligaments (aka Cooper’s droopers)n. supportive fibrous structures throughout the breast that partially sheathe the lobes shaping the breast; these ligaments affect the image of the glandular tissue on a mammogram No other vaunted medical career has been reduced more pitifully than that of Sir Astley Paston Cooper. Despite being the sergeant surgeon to nineteenth-century royalty and vice president of the Royal Society, he is also the unfortunate namesake of the perceived condition of sagging breasts resulting from an unsupportive bra. The slang term is Cooper’s Droop, which found new pop culture life in 1978 through Samuel Shem’s satirical novel "The House of God," in which a young medical intern waxes poetic on his girlfriend’s bosom: “Oh, how I love her breasts when she dances. Cooper’s ligaments suspend the breasts. Cooper’s Droopers, if they stretch.”
Miranda (warning and rights)(08 of13)
Miranda (warning and rights)adj. of, relating to, or being the legal rights of an arrested person to have an attorney and to remain silent so as to avoid self-incrimination Despite the constitutional warm fuzzies invoked in the United States by the Amendment-imbued words “You have the right to remain silent ...,” the namesake of the pop culture cliché “Miranda warning” was an extraordinarily sad scumbag. Though not being read his rights allowed Ernesto Arturo Miranda to appeal his case to the U.S. Supreme Court, he was ultimately still convicted for the rape of an 18-year-old girl, served nearly a dozen years in prison, and finally died in a knife fight at the age of 34. His suspected killer invoked his right to remain silent and allegedly escaped to Mexico to avoid prosecution.
Barbie(09 of13)
Barbien. a woman who is likened to a Barbie doll, esp. in being pretty or shapely but passive, characterless, or unintelligent The original “Barbie” was an 18-year old girl named Barbara Handler whose entrepreneur mother was convinced that Barbara (and thousands of other girls) would like to play with a German fashion doll for men. Meanwhile, the original “Ken” was Barbara’s hapless brother who had the misfortune of being the only boy around when names were bandied about for Barbie’s on-again, off-again, sexually unthreatening “play pal.” As a disturbing side note, the original Barbie prototypes from Japan were apparently so realistic that designers had to file down their nipples to make them less provocative. (credit:Getty Images)
Shrapnel(10 of13)
shrapneln. shell fragments scattered by any exploding shell In the mid-1780s, British lieutenant Henry Shrapnel figured out a way to pack a projectile with all sorts of unpleasantness and have it detonate above the heads of enemy troops. The Duke of Wellington was so successful using Shrapnel’s shells to kill scores of Napoleon’s soldiers during the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 that Shrapnel was ultimately promoted to major general. Few refinements to it were made through the course of World War I and into World War II. Even the modern cannonades of Vietnam featured the canister-shot artillery that Shrapnel had pioneered. Shrapnel himself died in 1842, presumably of natural causes.
Messalina(11 of13)
Messalinan. a licentious, lascivious, or scheming woman While still a teenager (circa AD 35), Valeria Messalina became the wife of Claudius, himself the aging uncle of the sexually deviant current emperor, Caligula. After Caligula’s assassination and Claudius’s succession to the throne, Messalina became a nymphomaniacal tyrant who slept with wealthy landowners, had them tried and convicted of false treason, and then assumed control of their properties She ultimately sealed her own doom by forcing one of her lovers to divorce his wife, marry Messalina in a bigamous public ceremony, and plot the assassination of Claudius. Claudius was alerted to their treachery and ordered their executions, after which Messalina’s name emerged and has since endured to represent any deceitful and unfaithful woman.
Fanny Adams(12 of13)
Fanny Adamsn. tinned meat It is possible no one has been treated more unfairly both in her lifetime and by posterity than young Fanny Adams, who was brutally murdered and dismembered when she was eight years old and whose body took days to piece back together. Unfortunately, the indignities for poor Fanny continued two years after her death when the Royal Navy began issuing new rations of unappetizing tinned mutton. With the sailors joking that the victuals must be the chopped remains of Fanny Adams, the catchy name stuck and came to be used for all mystery meat. There are some in the Royal Navy who also refer to steak and kidney pudding as “baby’s head,” and one can only assume that a special circle of hell awaits them. (credit:www.bobthebrit.net)
Nobel Prize*(13 of13)
*Honorable MentionNobel Prizen. each of six (formerly five) prizes awarded annually to individuals who are judged to have contributed most in the fields of physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, the promotion of peace, and economics Alfred Nobel is really an anti-entry in the Tawdry Knickers book. Trained as a chemist, Nobel invented and patented “Nobel’s Blasting Powder” (i.e., dynamite) in 1867 and made an enormous fortune. In 1888, several newspapers mistakenly published his death notice following the passing of his brother Ludvig. One French newspaper used the opportunity to condemn Nobel’s invention of dynamite and wrote, “Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday.” Nobel was apparently so horrified by his potential legacy that he ultimately rewrote his will in 1895 to dedicate approximately $9 million to establish the Nobel Foundation.
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