An Immodest Proposal
by Mudak
Chapter 11
The following week, Professor Wells’s PowerPoint display started with the word ‘Eponyms’. Vanessa had managed to arrive on time to this class, partially at the urging of Keith, who now sat right next to her.
When the teacher strode into the class, he smiled broadly and said, “Who knows what an eponym is?”
There was a low murmur throughout the class, but no one came forward with the answer to this question.
Professor Wells sighed and said, “An eponym is a word that enters the language from the name of the person who had some degree of notoriety. Their name becomes synonymous with the event or thing they’re responsible for. Can anyone come up with any examples of this?”
A few students hesitantly raised their hands. The professor pointed to a guy in the back of the room, who called out, “Bell! Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone and all of the phone companies took their names from him.”
“That’s a pretty good example, Dave. Of course, the word ‘Bell’ existed in our language long before the telephone came into being. But it’s fair to say that the word ‘bell’ took on an additional meaning or two thanks to the work of Alexander Graham. Any others?” He pointed to a girl Vanessa didn’t know.
“Crapper. Thomas Crapper invented the toilet.”
“Very good, Sophie. Crapper is an excellent slang term for toilet. Thanks to our buddy Tom. Where it’s not quite so straightforward is whether the term ‘crap’ meaning ‘shit’ begins here or not. There’s definitely an interrelationship between the two words, though.” He paused for a minute, smiled, and looked around the room. “How about we move away from people’s inventions and think about some kind of historical notoriety. Does anyone know where the phrase ‘Your name is mud’ comes from?”
Chandra raised her hand and the professor indicated for her to speak. “When Abraham Lincoln was shot, the doctor who attended to him was named … Mudd. I don’t remember his first name.”
The teacher quickly said, “Samuel.”
“Right! Anyway, some people blamed Dr. Mudd for Lincoln’s death. And so it became that, when someone’s reputation has been tarnished, their name is mud.”
“Very good. Here’s one: who knows what the Donner Party was?”
Keith blurted out, “Wasn’t that a group of pioneers who resorted to cannibalism to survive as they rode out to get to California?”
“I guess you could say that,” Justin said. “There’s some dispute as to whether they actually did eat the flesh of other members of their party after they’d died, but it makes for an interesting story. In fact, world history is littered with tales of people who hadn’t planned on being cannibals but found they needed to, just to survive.”
Vanessa’s train of thought once again started to wander. She gazed down at Keith’s pants, wondering when she’d next get into them. She half-heard the professor talking about the 1972 Uruguayan rugby team dramatized in the movie Alive, and Alferd Packer, the only person convicted of cannibalism in American history.
Although it sounded like an echo of an echo of an echo, the class clearly started to engage him in discussion as to whether or not cannibalism could be justified. She vaguely heard herself thinking that she’d do it if she absolutely needed to, even if she had no desire to do so. She made a note that she’d discuss this with Professor Wells when she went to visit his office again, as the conversation shifted to Loreena Bobbitt and how her last name has become an eponym of a woman getting revenge on her boyfriend or husband.