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!

Motley Crue

Mötley Crüe playing at a Sweden rock festival in 2012.

MÖTLEY CRÜE seems like a good band name for an origin story. You may have heard the expression a "motley-looking crew" not referring to the band. In fact, there were motley crews on board ships a long time before there was a band with that name. 

Mötley Crüe is an American heavy metal band formed in Los Angeles in 1981 by bassist Nikki Sixx, drummer Tommy Lee, lead guitarist Mick Mars and lead singer Vince Neil. 

Mötley Crüe has sold over 100 million albums worldwide with seven platinum or multi-platinum certifications, nine Top 10 albums on the Billboard 200 chart, 22 Top 40 mainstream rock hits, and six Top 20 pop singles. 1989's Dr. Feelgood is Mötley Crüe's only album to reach number one.

The band experienced several short-term lineup changes in the 1990s and 2000s, including Lee's departure in 1999 and return in 2004. Their current lineup has been the same as the original since then.

 

The band members maintained and advertised hedonistic lifestyles and androgynous personae. Considered to be hard rock and heavy metal on their first two albums, Too Fast for Love (1981) and Shout at the Devil (1983), with their third album, Theatre of Pain (1985), they were part of the early glam metal category.

"Motley" means "of great variety." It was once used to describe the appearance of a court jester for the many-colored outfits. A "motley crew" of sailors would be one with great diversity in ages, experiences, races or nationalities.

Guitarist Mick Mars suggested the name based on some referring to a previous band he had played with called White Horse as being "a motley looking crew." He wrote it as "Mottley Cru" but the band changed it to cure avoiding the standard spelling. Neil suggested adding two umlauts (those pronunciation dots over the letters) just to be different and wanted them to be shown in metal to suggest the metal nature of their music. He was inspired by the use of the umlauts on the label and caps of the German beer Löwenbräu which they were drinking at the time.    

Studio Albums

1. Too Fast for Love (1981)
2. Shout at the Devil (1983)
3. Theatre of Pain (1985)
4. Girls, Girls, Girls (1987)
5. Dr. Feelgood (1989)
6. Mötley Crüe (1994)
7. Generation Swine (1997)
8. New Tattoo (2000)
9. Saints of Los Angeles (2008)

Official website www.motley.com

Flotsam and Jetsam

 

Unfortunately, most flotsam and jetsam end up on beaches - NOAA photo

You probably have heard the words flotsam and jetsam (and probably heard them together) in some book or movie. Today, it is sometimes used to mean "odds and ends." But in maritime law, each word has a specific meaning.

Both terms describe two types of marine debris.

Flotsam is defined as debris in the water that was not deliberately thrown overboard. This happens with an accident or shipwreck. The word flotsam derives from the French word floter meaning "to float."

Jetsam describes debris that was deliberately thrown overboard by a crew of a ship. This might have been done to lighten the ship's load if it was sinking. Jetsam is a shortened version of jettison which means throw or drop (something) from an aircraft or ship, and more broadly to abandon or discard someone or something that is no longer wanted.

Zuzu's Petals

"Zuzu's petals" is a phrase from the 1946 movie It's A Wonderful Life which since its release has become a Christmas-season film classic.

The petals belong to Zuzu Bailey, the youngest daughter of George Bailey the main character. Early in the film, Zuzu shows a flower that she brought home from school and became upset when the petals started to fall off. Her father pretended to reattach them but actually just slipped the lost petals into his pocket.

By the end of the movie, after considering suicide, George has been shown what the world might be like if he had never been born. Given a second chance by God, aided by the angel Clarence, all the changes he had seen in the world were undone. His first realization that his world had been returned to him was when he found that Zuzu's petals were once again in his pocket.

The unusual name, Zuzu, is sometimes used as a short nickname for Susan. But Grimes, who played Zuzu in the film, has another origin story. She says it came from a Nabisco cookie called Zu Zu Ginger Snaps. It was a widely advertised product in magazines of the period. If that sounds farfetched, remember that near the end of the film, George runs up the house stairs and when he meets his little daughter he says “Zuzu, my little ginger snap!“

The phrase has become a kind of shorthand way of reminding people of the hope that things can be mended and made better.

"Zuzu's petals...Zuzu... There they are!"

groggy

You are most likely these days to hear the word "groggy" to describe someone who is tired or has a hangover. Its origin story is not far off from that sense.

The story of groggy begins far from alcohol. It starts with grogram, the name of a coarse, loosely woven fabric made entirely or partly from silk. There was an 18th-century English Admiral, Edward Vernon, who was reputed to have been in the habit of always wearing a grogram cloak. This unique look earned him the nickname "Old Grog" among the sailors under his command.

In the 18th century, sailors in the Royal Navy in the West Indies were customarily given a daily ration of rum. Admiral Vernon was disturbed by the damage to the physical and moral health of his men this rum created. In 1740, he ordered that the rum should be diluted with water. The decision wasn't popular with the sailors, who supposedly dubbed this new mixture "grog" after the Admiral.

The word grog eventually became a general term for almost any liquor that led to people who moved with the unsteadiness characteristic of someone who has had too much grog. You might wake up groggy in the morning without even drinking the night before.

Pirates made a nice modification of the Navy grog which was really just watered down rum. They called the drink bumbo and mixed rum, water, sugar, and nutmeg. The Royal Navy's later grog recipe includes lemon juice, water, rum, and cinnamon. In the Caribbean, I have been served a much fruitier grog that had water, light rum, grapefruit juice, orange juice, pineapple juice, cinnamon, and honey.

Though I could not find an origin for the word "bumbo" I did find variations. Bumbu was commonly used during election campaigns in colonial British America as a way to entice voters to a candidate. The practice was known as "swilling the planters with bumbu." (Why "planters?") 

The not-a-pirate and respectable George Washington was particularly noted for using this technique. His papers state that he used 160 gallons of rum to treat 391 voters to bumbu during campaigning for the Virginia House of Burgesses in July 1758. At almost a half-gallon per person, there were surely some groggy voters from that campaign.