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So. "An eponym is the name of a person ... after which a particular place, tribe, etc. is named or thought to be named. One who is referred to as eponymous is someone who gives his or her name to something, e.g., Julian, the eponymous owner of the famous restaurant Julian's Castle."

What do you call it when a general name for a group of things or a thing is used to name another thing. For example: a hybrid human/horse is named a centaur (yes, yes they're mythological) and a sort of small planet that's a hybrid asteroid/comet is named a centaur in their honor. So what is that second use of centaur called as a part of speech? Anyone? anyone?

Yes I really want to know: NOT a rhetorical question.

Thanks.
I like your question allisondbl and will look forward to seeing the answer too. It was the word eponymous that bought me here.... to this forum!
Analog(ue)?
No. Nice try though: that's when a thing is actually the equivalent to another thing in a different realm, e.g. x in biology is the analogue of y in chemistry, or a similarity.

I'm looking for the equivalent of an eponym for objects or types of objects, see example I gave.

But thank you for trying!
Sorry, you lost me. How is that a hybrid in mythology and a hybrid in astronomy are not equivalent, and therefore analogous? It depends on what characteristics are being considered, does it not, to determine what things are or are not analogs?
I think what allisondbl is looking for is the name you would apply to the words that are used to indicate that analogy. Example: Resistance is analogous to drag in an equation that is modeled on an analog computer but the resistance isn't named 'drag'. You could call the hybrid asteroid/comet anything, e.g., HAC. What do you call it when you name it for the thing it is an analog of?
WELCOME ALLISONDBL
Exactly!

As I noted as an example: we use the term centaur to refer to a human/horse hybrid in mythology/fantasy. (Unless the biologists have been hiding something ...) In astronomy there is a group of stellar bodies that act like asteroid/comet hybrids and they're called Centaurs, the first found being named Chiron after the most famous and respected of centaurs.

So the query is: what is the rhetorical figure of speech equivalent to eponym or alliteration or metaphor for when you have used a name for one class of objects (yes, technically a centaur is sentient but think of it in the way human or chair is a class of object) as the given name for a wholly different group of objects.

Closest I've come is 'namesake' which I am convinced is NOT le mot juste.

Still looking! Thanks
Originally Posted By: allisondbl
For example: a hybrid human/horse is named a centaur (yes, yes they're mythological) and a sort of small planet that's a hybrid asteroid/comet is named a centaur in their honor. So what is that second use of centaur called as a part of speech?


So when you say "named a centaur in their honor" you mean a particular body is given the name of a particular centaur; that is, "named after a centaur"? I read it as a general case: human/horse creatures are called centaurs, and asteroid/comet bodies are called centaurs in their honor. Now I understand my confusion.

This was discussed here to no avail. Better luck this time.
*Bonks head on desk and laughs* Now I see why MORE 411 is as confusing as too little.

All I mean is: the name for ALL human/horse hybrids is centaur. The 'kind of thing' name for ALL asteroid/comet hybrids is Centaur - as in "We found a new Centaur in the sky last night!"

They were going for a halfX/halfY thing. When a type of thing is named after another type of thing what is the term of rhetoric for that. OR IS THERE ONE!!! I'd bet there is.

Thanks for link, but NO there are NO personal names involved in my question.
kleenex.
what is the rhetorical figure of speech equivalent to eponym or alliteration or metaphor for when you have used a name for one class of objects (yes, technically a centaur is sentient but think of it in the way human or chair is a class of object) as the given name for a wholly different group of objects.

Well, it's not alliteration or metaphor. Centaurus was not a centaur. He was human or divine. He mated with some mares and that's where centaurs came from, or at least that is the myth preserved for us in classical literature. Sounds like a plain old eponym. Centaurs are also called Ixcionides, i.e., the sons of Ixion. His story (link) is complicated, but he was human or semi-divine, being the offspring of Zeus. As implied below, genericization comes close, but is a modern term. Do you have any other wexample than centaurs, which I believe is a flawed one?

Many origin myths (of groups of people or other kinds of beings) merely postulate a forefather whose name is a back-formation from the group name, e.g., Geoffrey of Monmouth writes that the origin of the Britons is from a Trojan Brutus, who left Asia with Aeneas (the latter having founded Rome), and finally ended up in Britannia. Another example is Romulus who founded Rome with his twin brother Remus.
Originally Posted By: zmjezhd
Centaurus was not a centaur. He was human or divine. He mated with some mares and that's where centaurs came from, or at least that is the myth preserved for us in classical literature. Sounds like a plain old eponym.


That would explain why centaurs, the half human half horse centaurs are so called. But that's not the question. The question is about the half asteroid, half comet centaurs. They were not named after Centaurus.
Posted By: zmjezhd Re: bass ackwards by half - 06/07/11 12:20 AM
The question is about the half asteroid, half comet centaurs. They were not named after Centaurus.

Well, presumably some guy/gal named them cuz they reminded him/her of half men half horses. As I asked: do you have some other examples of this phenomenon? If not, I hardly think it needs a term that covers the coining of this particular word. Metaphor covers it pretty well, but seems broader than expected.
Posted By: tsuwm Re: bass ackwards by half - 06/07/11 02:11 AM
..or maybe just because it's half of something and half of something else - an allusion, as it were.
Posted By: Faldage Re: bass ackwards by half - 06/07/11 10:30 AM
Well, maybe there isn't a word for it. I have one additional example. On my trip to work one possible route goes along a short gravel road name Stonehouse Rd. At one end of Stonehouse Rd. is a stone house. We always refer to it as the eponymous stone house, but, as allisondbl points out, that's not quite the right term. And I have referred to an inning with the same number as the number of runs one team gets in that inning as eponymous, as in, the Red Sox scored five runs in the eponymous fifth inning. I don't think this is a common usage so I wouldn't put it forth as an example. However, I wouldn't be at all surprised if my stone house example was legitimate.
Posted By: zmjezhd Re: bass ackwards by half - 06/07/11 12:20 PM
maybe just because it's half of something and half of something else - an allusion, as it were

That's what I meant, tsu, but just could express well. Thanks.
Posted By: zmjezhd Re: bass ackwards by half - 06/07/11 12:31 PM
At one end of Stonehouse Rd. is a stone house.

Well, I looked at the entry for eponumos in Scott & Liddell (link), and one section says: "named after a person or thing". I realize this is just promoting the etymological fallacy, because the OED online entry only mentions a thing's being named after a person. Maybe it's just rarer than vice versa, but Faldo's example feels like a common enough thing.
LOLS again. To use another expression, peeps be getting lost in the trees and missing da forest.

Okay let's see if I can think up an example of what I'm looking for. There are NO repeat NO proper names involved.

Bugger. I can't think of one. Okay. Maybe this is a parallel example, MAYBE ... Lewis Caroll named a thing a Boojum, and the Boojum Tree was named such after it as is a phenomenon in physics. Assuming Boojum was a CLASS or TYPE of thing in Carroll then maybe this is another example of what I'm looking for a rhetorical name for.

(yes, too many for endings, sorry busy and don't want to rewrite.) Any help??
Trojan asteroids might be on the edge of what we're looking for but chimera is, I believe, spot on.
Let me see if this is another example:
A piece of a saint's (?Francis?) cloak was kept in a small room off the main sanctuary of the church. The room took on the name capella from the Latin for cloak and was Anglicized to chapel. Now a is a small space for worship is often called a chapel. The word is not an eponym because it is not named after a person but a piece of clothing - a thing.

I am not sure there is a term for such words.

St. Martin, that's the owner of the cloak. Well, was the owner.
Sigh. Amazing how difficult something simple can be! I thank all for guesses, but this really is an 'on the bus, off the bus' question.

Thanks for Trojan Asteroids, but no: I KNOW a Centaur is the term for an asteroid/comet (just as I KNOW a human/horse hybrid is a centaur), the question is: when they chose the name for the class or group of items or what-have-you which the latter term centaur represents in homage to the former class of objects, what is the RHETORICAL TERM for engaging in such an homage?

The etymology of chapel is closer, but I'd still believe that the origin of that word as a general term from one specific example and ... something else-y is NOT a parallel. But again: thank you for playing and I hope someone knows the actual answer! Argghhh!
here's a list of figures of substitution; enjoy.
Considering your list doesn't have eponym on it I would suggest that it's a little off target.
Online etymology

eponym:
"one whose name becomes that of a place, a people, an era, an institution, etc., 1846, from Gk. eponymos "given as a name, giving one's name to something," from epi “upon” (see epi-) + onyma, Aeolic dial. variant of onoma "name" (see name)."

When you look at the meaning of the word "eponym" : litt.
"upon" and "name"
the word does not make a specific difference between the name of a person and the name of a thing; so a thing named after a thing simply stays an eponym (to me).

centaur + centaur = eponym + eponym
Posted By: zmjezhd Re: technically a name - 06/08/11 12:57 PM
When you look at the meaning of the word "eponym"

That's what I was on about up above in my post. In Greek, eponumos could be somebody or something after which something was named. But ...

As for the list of rhetorical devices ...
Posted By: BranShea Re: technically a name - 06/08/11 05:19 PM
Yes, well, there 's a lot of reading to do on this thread. I'm already very glad I understood a little of what was going on.

[ Zed! I like your capella - chapel. ]

P.S. ( I don't know what the figure of speech 'an on the bus-off the bus question' means )
Posted By: obihave Re: technically a name - 06/08/11 08:07 PM
The term googolplex was derived from the comic strip "Barney Google". Later on, the website "Google" was named with the word "googolplex" in mind. Now, to search for something on the Internet is sometimes called "googling". So "googling" is kind of like a 3 layer eponym. Right?
Posted By: tsuwm Re: technically a name - 06/08/11 08:37 PM
>The term googolplex was derived from the comic strip "Barney Google"

maybe, maybe not - the term 'googol' was invented by a child (Dr Kasner's nine-year-old nephew) who was asked to think up a name for a very big number, namely, 1 with a hundred zeros after it. there is speculation that the boy may have been influenced by Barney, but.
Posted By: zmjezhd Re: technically a name - 06/09/11 12:04 AM
the term 'googol' was invented by a child

And a googolplex is 10^googol.
Posted By: allisondbl Re: technically a name - 06/11/11 04:38 AM
Hey. "On the bus or off the bus" comes from Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, as in Tom Wolfe's the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

It means you get it or you don't. You're there or you're not. I mean it as there IS a right answer or there's not. I'm looking for a rhetorical term for a specific phenomenon (a class of things named after/named in homage to another class of things - NO PROPER NAMES involved) and it either has a name in rhetoric i.e. Latin, or it does not!

And I do not believe eponym is the term for which I'm searching. According to all I've read, eponym involves A PROPER NAME on one side of the equation or the other, e.g. note the quote from BranShea [thank you] "ONE whose name" is, i.e. the name of an actual PERSON, for example Caesar as in Caesarian.

But let's keep trying. Really. I wanna KNOW!!!!
Posted By: BranShea Re: technically a name - 06/11/11 08:07 AM
Thank you for "On the bus or off the bus" .
I'm afraid you will have to invent the word yourself and please share it with us when you have had your eureka moment. ;-)
Posted By: LukeJavan8 Re: technically a name - 06/11/11 03:18 PM
I'm with Bran. I've been following the discussion and I get
more and more in the dark as I do.
Posted By: allisondbl Re: technically a name - 06/12/11 06:54 AM
Well I'm obviously not the Diogenes or Prometheus for this block so I got no more light to give. Maybe sometime, somewhere, either someone will stumble on this discussion and elucidate it for us ... or if I find help elsewhere it'll be share and share alike.

Thanks! Alley
Posted By: LukeJavan8 Re: technically a name - 06/12/11 03:01 PM
Lots of luck.
Posted By: va-vavoom Re: technically a name - 06/21/11 03:37 PM
I advance the word 'mule'. As a hybrid, as a stubborn subject.
Posted By: LukeJavan8 Re: technically a name - 06/21/11 03:39 PM
not bad, could take the discussion in a different direction.
Posted By: va-vavoom Re: technically a name - 06/23/11 06:38 AM
the mule must have gone back to the stable.
Posted By: LukeJavan8 Re: technically a name - 06/23/11 04:09 PM
Yup, many critters do wander off.
Posted By: allisondbl Re: technically a name - 06/29/11 08:46 PM
Or is it just closing the stable door after the mule has gone off to figure out how to facepalm ... having previously given up on banging its head against the wall ... no matter HOW many times its mother says "Go bang your head it'll feel so good when you stop."

No satisfaction btw, still NO idea of the actual answer, and I'd have to give a NO vote to mule as, NEARLY by definition, a mule can engender no progeny! (Yes, yes, some females do, but my Centaur(s) are all male thank you.)

(But SERIOUSLY) thanks for playing and I still hope someone can help!)
Posted By: va-vavoom Re: technically a name - 06/29/11 09:57 PM
are you selectively breeding for gender if 'your' Centaurs are all male or is that like 99.9% of all calicoes being female? My centaurs have been known to be very mulish themselves!
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