Everyone is fascinated by stories they read and listened to. A week ago, a reader of this column sent me an email stating that he had always been fascinated by certain English words and their stories. He had listed a number of words named after famous/notorious people and ended the email with this query: “What is the word for something which has been named after a person?”
The answer to the query is ‘eponym’. ‘Eponym’ is a person after whom something is named. The word ‘eponym’ originates from the Greek word ‘eponumos’ (epi=upon, onoma+name) which means ‘giving one’s name to someone or something’.
Is it important to know the origin of words? Yes, knowing the history or origin (also known as etymology) of words helps us understand the meaning of the words better and use them appropriately in sentences. By understanding the parts (prefixes, root word, suffixes) of a word we can learn the meaning of the word and remember it easily. For example, the word ‘hippopotamus’ is a combination of the Greek words ‘hippos’ (horse) and ‘potamos’ (river). So, ‘hippopotamus’ is a river horse.
Let’s consider the word ‘boycott’. It means to express protest by abstaining or withdrawing from something. The word ‘boycott’ has been used in English since the Irish “Land War” in 1880. An Englishman, Charles Boycott, who was a land agent of Lord Erne in Ireland, refused to reduce rents and tried to evict the protesting tenants from the land. Instead of resorting to violence, the tenants expressed their protest by stopping work in the fields and isolating Charles Boycott.
The word ‘lynch’ has been in news for over two weeks in the Indian media. After a 50-year-old Muslim man was lynched by an angry mob in a village in Uttar Pradesh recently for allegedly having eaten and stored beef at their home, the incident resulted in a series of protests across the country and attracted the attention of the international media too. “An Angry Mob In India Lynched a Muslim Man Because They Thought He Had Eaten Beef” was the title of a news report in the Time magazine.
‘Lynching’ is an extralegal killing of a person by a mob for an alleged crime. The term ‘lynch law’ (1811), likely named after William Lynch, refers to the administration of on-the-spot punishment, especially death, upon a person by a mob without legal process. It is said that William Lynch self-instituted and presided over tribunals and awarded summary punishment to those who were allegedly involved in a crime.
“In the name of modifying something, they are trying to NaModify everything.”