Gramer Girl here, I'm a neon fugody and you can think of me as your friendly guide to

the English language.

Writing, history, rules, and cool stuff.

Today, I have an extra special show.

We're going to talk about English eponyms, like how the saxophone was named after Adolf

Sacks.

And I'll mix that in with eponym stories from listeners.

And now onto eponyms.

An eponym is a word that's based on a person's name.

For example, Adolf Sacks was a Belgian instrument maker who brought a new instrument to a Victorian

event in 1851 called the Great Exhibition.

His main job was making flutes and clarinets, and his invention which looked something like

a mashup of those two instruments was dubbed the saxophone.

Other things that were named after people that you might know about include Braille, the

language of raised dots that blind people can use to read invented by Louis Braille.

Scientific terms like Fahrenheit, Celsius, pasteurize, ampere, Ome, Volt, and Watt, all named

after famous scientists.

In terms we've covered before in the podcast or in my books like guillotine, teddy bear,

and boldly rise.

Guillotine named after Joseph Guillotine who was opposed to the death penalty, but lobbied

for the device to be used for beheadings during the French Revolution because it was more

humane.

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