Task 72

Read the stories about the transition of proper names into common ones accompanied by semantic changes. In each case identify the nature of semantic change: a) metaphor, b) metonymy.

Etienne de Silhouette → silhouette

1. Etienne de Silhouette was the French controller gen­eral of finances in the mid-18th century. He was ex­tremely close with the state's money as well as his own, so close, in fact, that à la Silhouette came to mean "cheaply" for a time. His niggardliness was greeted with ridicule. It was even suggested that one of his economies was the decoration of his house with his outlines, which he made himself, rather than with more expensive paintings. Outline drawings, as stingy of detail as Silhouette was of money, were given his name.

Louis Braille → Braille / braille

2. The system of reading and writing for the blind Braille was invented by Louis Braille. In 1812 a little French boy, Louis Braille, was blinded. He learned his alpha­bet at a school for the blind by feeling twigs that were fashioned in the shape of the letters. The lad was hun­gry for knowledge and impatient with this awkward technique. When he was older he heard of a French Army captain who devised a system of raised dots and dashes by which his orders could be read by the fin­gers in the dark. It occurred to Louis that the principle was good for the blind. So Louis Braille developed a system of reading and writing for the blind in which letters are printed as groups of raised dots that they can feel with their fingers.

Samuel Pickwick →Pickwick

3. Samuel Pickwick was created by Charles Dickens. Mr. Pickwick debuted in a series of Dickens' stories that were first published in 1836 and 1837. He was the kind, but somewhat easily fooled, chairman of a club he started and named after himself - the Pickwick Club. The stories tell about the adventures of Pickwick and other club members. The tales made Charles Dickens a literary sensation, and Mr. Pickwick became so popular that people began using his name as a gen­eral term for someone who is pleasant but naive.

Joseph I. Guillotine → guillotine

4. Joseph I. Guillotine was a French doctor. He never in­vented that horrible device used to execute people, es­pecially in France in the past. The device worked like this: a sharp blade was raised up on a frame and dropped onto the person's neck. Neither is there any truth in the legend that he was one of the first to die beneath its falling blade. But one cannot say he had nothing to do with it. Dr. Guillotine supported capital punishment and suggested the use of the machine in­stead of hanging. He insisted that it was a more "hu­manitarian" way of putting criminals to death. The machine was first used in Paris in 1792: a notorious highwayman was the first sentenced to be guillotined. Dr. Guillotine died quietly in his bed twenty-two years later. It is also interesting to note that now the word guillotine is used to name a device used for cutting and trimming papers.

John Duns Scotus → dunce

5. This word meaning "a stupid person" is an eponym for John Duns Scotus (1265-1308), a leading scholar of philosophy and theology. Scotus was born in Duns, Scotland, and his writings formed the philosophical core for a Scholastic sect named after him, the Scotists. In the 16th century, humanists and reformers be­gan attacking the Scotists for splitting hairs and en­gaging in useless philosophical discussions. In retaliation, the Scotists railed against the new learning of the Renaissance. As a result, Duns (Duns → dunce) becamе associated with those who refused to learn.