Mephistos

Anonyponymous

By Ray on October 8th, 2009

To have always been such a logical, scientific and mathematical thinker, I have always like the way certain big words look and sound. And appealing to logical side of me along with the side that loves history, I really like finding out about where words come from and stepping through the usually logical beginnings of how a word began to where some distant relative word means something that does not seem on the surface to make logical sense, but given the history usually it does. With all of that goes a love on my part of just learning new words, which is where anonyponymous fits into this little blog, but more about that one in a bit.

Think about a few common words that some of us use nearly everyday. Kindergarten for instance. How in the world does that end up as the term we use, at least here in the United States, almost universally to mean that year of school prior to first grade? A minister friend of mine pointed out something on this not to long ago, but if I recall correctly he was slightly incorrect. It is easy though, especially if you know a little about German language. Kind is basically child and garten meaning garden. The term was coined by Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel, a philosopher and teacher in the early 17th century. He thought, based on his on self-taught learning style, that allowing young children to play and directing that play toward learning they would blossom and thrive in the endeavor much as the flowers of a garden. Ironic then that the German government was so scared of the lack of structure such offerings had they banned kindergartens, but not before the idea began to spread to the rest of Europe and even the United States.

Ever been called a Walt or even worse, been accused of having a Mitty complex? I have never had the latter happen, though in truth I probably do deserve that one on occasion. I have been referred to as Walt on a couple of occasions though. I had to give that one some thought and even look a bit. The later one I would have gotten and from that should have probably gotten the first. Both terms originate from that James Thurber character notorious for day dreaming without ever accomplishing anything by the name of Walter Mitty. Calling someone a Walt is usually referring to someone who aspires to be in the military or of significant importance within such an organization without actually having the ability. It has, in some circles, been used to refer to those of us, like myself, who do historical military reenacting, which is where I have of course heard it.

My guess is you are all but jumping out of your seat wanting to know what anonyponymous means at this point, some of you having to grip the arms of your chair to keep from looking it up. Lets start with anonymous, which I will assume we all know what it means, but to be to sure, doing something without taking credit or without anyone knowing to whom credit is due. Eponymous is what happens when a place, object, or thing is named after someone or they give their name to, for instance Washington D.C. is named in honor of George Washington. Anonyponymous is having something named after you but no one really knowing the why or what you did or even completely being ignorant of the fact it was named after you. A perfect example is the fellow by the name of John Montagu, pictured above. He was in fact famous for a few things, including funding the trip Cooke made when Hawaii was discovered, being First Admiral of the Navy when war broke out between Britain and the American colonies (some even suggest his failures early cause the loss of the war later), and flamboyant way with the gaming tables that made him to busy to leave for dinner. The islands of Hawaii were first named the Sandwich Islands in his honor, because he was the Earl of Sandwich and his snack was meat between bread, which caught on with everyone around him.

Are we not glad I am not writing about something else technical for a change?

** – Picture is credited to the Maritime Museum of England, where the original portrait is to be found.