Things Unexpectedly Named After People
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Things Unexpectedly Named After People
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Re: Things Unexpectedly Named After People
#2Also, the term "Guy" which is an eponym for Guy Fawkes
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/guy#Etymology_1
Re: Things Unexpectedly Named After People
#3In french, a waste container is called "une poubelle". From the name of the prefect Eugène Poubelle who decided the collection of waste in Paris in 1884.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poubelle
Re: Things Unexpectedly Named After People
#4In french, a waste container is called "une poubelle". From the name of the prefect Eugène Poubelle who decided the collection of waste in Paris in 1884. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poubelle
This isn't just a list of things named after people, but "unexpectedly named". For example "Main Street" being named after a person is surprising since you'd usually expect it to come from "main" in the sense of "principal". "Price Club" is funny since you'd expect that it's referring to low prices.
Is there another pre-existing meaning for "poubelle" that makes this naming unexpected?
Re: Things Unexpectedly Named After People
#5Silhouette, named for a French finance minister back in the 18th century. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silhouette
Eponyms can be very weird sometimes. The path from austerity-pushing minister to artistic rendering of outline in profile must have been a bit odd.
Re: Things Unexpectedly Named After People
#6The Elo rating system in chess is often written in capital letters, but it is not an acronym. It is named after its creator Arpad Elo.
https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1327/what-does-elo...
Re: Things Unexpectedly Named After People
#7[deleted]
Re: Things Unexpectedly Named After People
#8The Mars bar was named after the company, which was named after the person, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Clarence_Mars . Also, M&M's.
Re: Things Unexpectedly Named After People
#9Quite obvious omission for every C/C++ programmer, but:
Of course the "offical" name is "Compiler Explorer", but everybody just refers to it as "Godbolt" (probably because of the URL), which I thought is a weird but interesting name for a programming tool until I learned much too late that a certain "Matt Godbolt" has created it :D
Re: Things Unexpectedly Named After People
#10There's a common story that referring to a toilet as a "crapper" was related to Thomas Crapper. Apparently, not true, despite his influence in the field. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Crapper