It Is Eponyms Week: Dunce and Boycott

Eponyms can be a discovery, invention, place, etc., that is named (or thought to be named) after a person. It is a mid-19th century word coming from the Greek epōnumos (given as a name, or giving one's name to someone or something) from epi  "upon" + onoma "name."

I have written about a number of examples of eponyms before and this week we'll add a few more.

Don’t feel like a dunce for not knowing that this word is an eponym. I didn't know until recently. Oddly enough, it is named after a very intelligent man. John Duns Scotus was a philosopher, linguist and theologian in the late 13th and early 14th centuries. His metaphysical teachings lived on with followers who long after his death were known as Dunsmen or Duns.

During the Renaissance, the Duns were considered a kind of crazy group and Duns Scotus' teachings fell out of favor. They often wore pointed hats because Scotus thought the hats could be a funnel for knowledge. The hats, and the Duns themselves, became representative of idiocy, and soon the terms “dunce” and “dunce cap” were used to describe any fools or misbehaving children.

I also would not have thought that the verb boycott (meaning to abstain from using, as in "boycotting a product or company") came from a person's name. Charles Boycott (like Duns Scotus) would not be thrilled to see his name live on in the current usage. He was an unscrupulous landlord in the late 19th century. He was known for charging exorbitant rents to his tenant farmers and evicting them if they couldn’t pay. As a result, people avoided renting from him. Boycott was boycotted!