not really a standard, but it seems that the caps tend to disappear as usage widens.

James Kilpatrick once waxed (nearly) a column's worth on the subject:

Oct 13, 1996

The Court of Peeves, Irks & Crotchets resumes its autumn assizes with a petition from William H. Painter of Las Vegas. He asks a declaratory ruling on the capitalization of eponyms. With deference to Painter, a favorite correspondent, the court declines.

An eponym is a word derived from someone's name. For example, the adjective "herculean" derives from the mighty Hercules of Greek and Roman myth. The question put to the court is, should "herculean" be capitalized? To which the court replies, It depends. Depends on what? Depends on which dictionary you're using today.

Merriam-Webster uppercases "herculean." Random House likes "herculean" down. Merriam-Webster lowercases "stoic." Random House likes it up. It's "Stygian" darkness at Random House, "stygian" darkness at Webster's.

The court can discover no bright-line rule. The mythic "Gordian" knot, named for the peasant king of Phrygia, is always capitalized.

But if we are to capitalize Gordian, why do we lowercase "draconian"? The word derives from Draco, the severe Athenian lawmaker.

As a general proposition, eponymous plant names are down. It's wistaria, named for Caspar Wistar, and amaryllis, named for one of Virgil's shepherd maidens. Semiprecious stones follow the same pattern. It's amazonite and rhinestone, named for the rivers. The element titanium, named for the Greek giant, is down; so is neptunium, named after the mythical god of the seas.

Painter offers as Exhibit A an abbreviated list of eponyms that begins with Achilles' heel and Alzheimer's disease and runs on through Gila monster and Ponzi scheme, to quisling and voltage. There must be hundreds of capitalized eponyms: Adam's apple, Molotov cocktail, Heimlich maneuver, Maginot line, Gatling gun, Richter scale. There must be hundreds of lowercased ones as well: guillotine, silhouette, pompadour, lesbian, chauvinism, poinsettia, galvanize and balkanize. The list runs on.

The court surmises that some sedulous scholar has attempted to compile a whole glossary of eponyms. Perhaps the author has propounded a stylistic rule on capitalization. The court would be grateful for any advice it can get.

On to other cases on the docket: Carolyn Balthaser of Columbus, Ohio, asks for a simple ruling on "if I were" and "if I was." There is nothing simple about the subjunctive mood; it is dying of its own arcane complexity. This is as simple as the court can get: Use "were" for wishes and for conditions contrary to fact: I wish I were in Scotland tonight. If I were a magician I would turn marbles into diamonds. Otherwise, stick to the dear old indicative.

William Weigl of Troy, Ohio, petitions the court for a ruling on "exact same," as in "Dole said the exact same thing two years ago." The phrase is a redundancy, no doubt about it. In their Dictionary of Contemporary Usage, William and Mary Morris say flatly that the "exact" should be deleted.

The court disagrees. Redundancies have something in common with cholesterol. There are redundancies good and redundancies bad, and "exact same" falls in the harmless class. The intensifying "exact" adds weight and emphasis to "same," and thus raises an otherwise pedestrian sentence ("Dole said the same thing two years ago") to a level that catches a reader's eye.

(I include the entirety of this column, leaving some basis for contextual judgment on the ravings of Mr. Kilpatrick.)

edit: I found someone (who shall doubtless remain uneponymized) who blogged, "I think the actual guideline to follow here is that we capitalize eponyms only if they are adjectives. Once they become nouns, we quickly stop capitalizing them." I think this naught but a very rash generalization, based on a very limited sample that probably has more to do with (again) longevity of use.)

Last edited by tsuwm; 05/22/08 04:54 PM.