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Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)

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Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)

#101

Post by defrost »

thejosh wrote: post #39

I also love places that are named after someone and it's slightly amusing/horrifying. Harold Holt was the Australian Prime Minister in the 1960's, and went for a swim and went missing (yes, there are many, MANY local conspiracies this :)). So what did we do? Named a swimming pool[0] after him (construction actually started before his death, I believe). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Holt_Memorial_Swimming_.…

... and the cold war era submarine communications base:

Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Communication_Station_Ha...

    It is generally agreed that Holt's disappearance was a simple case of an accidental drowning, but a number of conspiracy theories surfaced, most famously the suggestion that he was a spy from the People's Republic of China and had been collected by a Chinese submarine.
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Harold_Holt

Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)

#102

Post by grokkedit »

About southern blot there is more: it's a method used to find a specific DNA sequence in a DNA sample, and was named after its creator.

When a similar method was invented that applies to RNA, was of course named Southern.

When the one for proteins was invented, was named Western.

Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)

#103

Post by GeneralMayhem »

senectus1 wrote: post #41
porphyra wrote: post #18

Main Street in San Francisco was named after Charles Main. https://mountainviewpeople.blogspot.com/2007/09/charles-main... Here are some more interesting ones... * Mason jar was named after John Landis Mason, 19th century American tinsmith * Guppy (fish) was named after Robert John Lechmere Guppy, 19th century British naturalist * Silhouette was named after Étienne de Silhouette, 18th century French politican * Bloom…

>Main Street in San Francisco was named after Charles Main. I feel this might be a bit of a cheeky urban legend, or at the very least a coincidence. "Main st" has been used in western city's and towns for a lot longer than SF has been around.

Yes, but the Main St. in San Francisco hasn't been around nearly as long as SF has. When the downtown grids were laid out, what's now Main St. was underwater. It didn't exist as land, let alone a road that was either significant or central. By the time it was filled in, it was home to Charles Main's mining provision shop.

The other way you can tell that it's not "main" is that it's parallel to 1st Street. Most cities don't have both a Main and a 1st, they have one or the other (which is why "Second Street" is the second-most common street name in the United States behind "Main", with "First" coming in third place). If SF were using Main in the "normal" sense, it would be where 1st is, next to 2nd. Failing that, it would at least be the next block over from 1st, so that 1st was counting from it. Washington, DC, sort of works that way, where there's a "zero street" (North/South Capitol), and then 1st is the next block over. But... SF's Main St. is a full three blocks from 1st. It's just kind of in the middle of nowhere, logically speaking. And that's again because of the landfill situation - 1st St. is the first full block counting from the shoreline at the time the streets were built.

Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)

#109

Post by netsharc »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #44

One of my favorites is that the creator of Pilates was a guy named Joe Pilates. It’s like if the inventor of yoga was named Vivek Yoga (which is not the case, to be clear.)

I think I was an adult when I heard the term Pilates.. why would it be intriguing, if his name were Brethorst people would be saying "Let's do you Brethorst exercises!"

Re: Things unexpectedly named after people (2020)

#110

Post by yau8edq12i »

saithound wrote: post #62

The generic Hungarian word for trash cans, 'kuka', unexpectedly originates from the names of German industrialists Johann Josef Keller and Jakob Knappich. The story is quite involved, to the extent that one would be tempted to dismiss it as a folk etymology, if it wasn't ridiculously well-attested. Keller and Knappich founded an acetylene factory in Augsburg, Bavaria in 1898. They named it Keller und Knappich Augsbur…

Funny enough, the French word for a garbage can is also named after someone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Poubelle the prefect who made the use of garbage containers mandatory in Paris.
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