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Annals of “Dunărea de Jos” University of GALAŢI
Fascicle XIII, New Series.
Issue 28, XVI (XXVII), 2009
pp. 56-60
ON IDENTITY, ALTERITY AND HYBRIDITY WITH
ENGLISH EPONYMS IN CHEMISTRY
Floriana Popescu and Carmen Opriţ-Maftei
Language
and
Literature
Introduction
Lexicographical approaches to English eponyms may be found in the form of
dictionaries, encyclopedia, pocket guides and handbooks, most of them describing medical
eponyms. Since eponymization has also been active in other sciences whose terminologies
may probably be dedicated specialized dictionaries or glossaries in the future, the current
paper focuses on one category of such eponyms ‘in waiting’ for an adequate lexicographic
explanatory volume, i.e., the eponyms in chemistry (chemical eponyms from now on).
Defined as overlapping three meanings (in McArthur 1996: 350), an eponym refers
either to (a) “a personal name from which a word has been derived”, or to (b) “the person
whose name is so used” (also eponymist, in the recent literature on eponyms) or to (c) “the
word so derived” (the recent terminology has suggested the use of eponymism for this
meaning). For the last thirty years, English eponyms have interested linguists (Hellweg 1995,
Crystal 1995, Crystal 2007), lexicographers (Manser 1996, Manser 2005), medical doctors
(Matteson and Woywodt 2006, Whitworth 2007), and specialists in ethics (Cubelli and Sala
2008).
That eponymization tends to become a considerably productive word creating process
is obvious in the case of LSP. Nevertheless, little has been stated in this regard in the
lexicological literature.
In addition, specialized terminologies of sciences (mathematics, physics and chemistry)
abound in eponyms (most of them became operative in the 19 th and 20 th centuries).
Specialized eponyms were observed to be either peculiar to one science or to be shared by
two or all of the three sciences (viz., Boolean geometry is useful both in mathematics and
physics). Despite the eponym field-specific high frequency of occurrence, none of these
sciences has benefitted from the compiling of adequate lexicographic instruments to describe
them.
The current interpretive perspective will consider the nationality of the eponymist
whose name was recategorized into a common noun or an element in a set phrase to be used
in the vocabulary of chemistry, for we think that speaking in terms of identity or alterity with
respect to the eponymist ensures the hybridity 1 of the English chemical eponyms. The paper
is the result of joint research carried out on the basis of a long-term research project
undertaken by the two authors and which has materialized into a lengthy series of
conference reports and publications (27 studies and articles on specific-field eponyms).
1. A terminological framework
The three key terms underlying our linguistic endeavour, identity, alterity and hybridity,
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