The Power of Names (Part II)

In the previous post I mentioned five names which I'd more or less pulled out randomly from my mental 'hat'. (I've also added notes on a whole bunch of other names suggested by various commenters, and I'll add more if you suggest more!)

To those names I'd like to add Darwinian, Dickensian and Nietzschean. I think the first has become one of those terribly misused labels applied indiscriminately to any form of selective process (how ironic!) while the second is only slightly misused for all manner of descriptive and picaresque writings. The last has, unfortunately, seen too much accurate use in this age — although the misuse of the label is still quite common.

It's interesting to see how we define whole periods by some people. The most obvious case in modern history is Victoria, Queen of England. She was born in 1819 and died in 1901; from her ascension to the throne of the United Kingdom in 1837, she more or less presided over the bulk of the 'long' 19th century. I've always preferred to define that period as being from 1776 to 1914, seeing the modern importance of the USA, but Hobsbawm (no we are NOT having 'Hobsbawmian', what an abomination) is a Marxist and prefers the French revolution in 1789 as the starting point. In 1914, the First World War broke out, and the major culprits were all her junior kinsmen.

That period gave rise to the majority of names on our list, which is serious food for thought.

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From NBL: Yes, that is quite an impressive list of mathematicians and physicists; but I think Copernican, Pythagorean, Platonic (now horribly misused to mean 'neutral' or 'regularised' rather than 'ideal'), and Euclidean probably have sufficient cultural capital — the rest aren't definitive of a large enough idea (by which I mean culturally far-reaching). I suppose we have to add Cartesian, for Descartes, as suggested elsewhere. Einsteinian is OK, but seriously, what would you mean by it in public?

The Power of Names (Part I)

There are some almost-forgotten people who in their lives have made a far-reaching impact on history. Quite often, this comes from the intensity of effect produced by superhuman conviction that they are right and that what they have done is righteous. Eventually, these people become adjectives, some by mere invention, some by enormous vision, some by serendipity.

In the years that have passed by, I have collected a few of these adjectival formations that speak to me specially, and a few that everyone is acquainted with. I have a little list, and if you like, you can add to it. Some of these are here for more than one reason; some are here for a reason that most people wouldn't think of using. I'll begin with five, and an obvious English bias.

Cromwellian, Orwellian, Churchillian, Keynesian, Newtonian

There. Comments?

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From Speedcuber: 'Machiavellian' — excellent, because it shifts the bias and I should have thought of that one myself; after all, he is the only one on the list so far to be quoted in my Master's thesis!

From Stark: a slew of musicians; but seriously, Rachmaninovian? I can deal with Wagnerian, and its associations with the Hitlerian, but the problem with musicians is that they tend not to define large swathes of history or cultural capital. And the problem with Bachian is... which Bach? Well, I tell you what, I'll scratch your Bach if you scratch mine. (The same problem occurs with Georgian, Edwardian and, to a lesser extent, Jacobean; Elizabethan and Victorian are fine.)

From Khayce: Shakespearean (which I've been trying to avoid, just having taught three of his blasted plays in the last few weeks), Hobbesian (remember the Leviathan!) and Kafkaesque. It seems that authors are more potent than composers.