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  GEPs -- Generico-Eponymic Paradoxes 
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        http://www.cs.indiana.edu/hyplan/tanaka/GEB/
        http://www.cs.indiana.edu/hyplan/tanaka/GEB/GEPs.html

        ;;; TANAKA Tomoyuki   ("Mr. Tanaka" or "Tomoyuki")
        ;;; <http://www.cs.indiana.edu/hyplan/tanaka.html>
        ;;; e-mail:  tanaka@cs.indiana.edu

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contents:
	-- introduction
	-- GEP1: Homer/Shakespeare
	-- GEP2: Clapton
	-- GEP3: Smucker's
	-- GEP4: Christina Applegate
	-- some more
	-- analysis

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-- introduction

 "generics" or generic names: "to Xerox", "a Frigidaire"
 				"a Hoover" (chif. Brit.)

 eponyms: "to boycott", "to lynch", ... .

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	| ep-onym \'ep-e-,nim\ n
	|		[Gk epo^-nymos, fr. epo^-nymos eponymous, fr.
	|		epi- + onyma name -- more at NAME] (ca. 1846)
	| 1: the person for whom something is or is believed to be named
	| 2: a name (as of a drug or a disease) based on or
	| 	derived from an eponym

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-- GEP1: Homer/Shakespeare

	"Homer's epics weren't written by him, but by someone
	else of the same name."

	"Shakespeare's plays weren't written by him, but by
	someone else of the same name."

 		(this is also the name of a paper by Hofstadter et al.)

 i wonder how old these sentence are, and who invented them.

 in my mind, for some reason, i've associated this Shakespeare
 one with
 	"if a tree falls in the woods and there's nobody around
 	to hear it, does it make a sound?"
			(i wonder who invented this one.
			is it some Sci Fi writer?)

 when i heard them for the first time, they both produced in me
 a temporary (a few seconds?) confusion which was very great,
 like the logico-philosophical traumas that Minsky talks about in
 his excellent paper on nonsense jokes and the unconscious.

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-- GEP2: Clapton

 someone praises Eric Clapton's guitar playing, and 
 another guys says,

	"Sure.  They don't call him Eric Clapton for nothing!"

	(i'm grateful to the person who told me this one.  when
	i have his permission i'll put an acknowledgement here.)

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-- GEP3: Smucker's

 American TV commercial for Smucker's (maker of jelly) ---

	"With a name like Smucker's, it's got to be good".

 i guess most people don't see the "paradox", and just
 understand the sentence to mean, "Smucker's means tasty jelly."
 kind of like "Rolaids spells relief."

 it'd be interesting to see what percentage of people see the
 "paradox".  my guess is less than 1%.

 the paradox is that after decades of successful business, they
 could have named their company any name [XXX] and could have
 said, "With a name like [XXX], it's got to be good".
 even a weird name, "With a name like XyptlaJelly, it's got to be good".

	Mike Geller <mgeller@avnet.co.uk> wrote:
	>
	> I don't think the slogan works in English. The name
	> Smuckers reminds me of the Yiddish word for penis.
	> [schmuck]

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-- GEP4: Christina Applegate

(by TT)

 let's say the name "Christina Applegate" (in the TV show
 "Married with Children") has come to mean "the quintessential
 super-cute, sexpot, dumb blond".

 and let's say Christina Applegate is frustrated with her
 real-life boyfriend who sees her only as a super-cute, sexpot,
 dumb blond.

 so she tells him,
	"Can't you see i'm much more than just Christina Applegate?"
	or
	"LOOK!  I am *NOT* Christina Applegate." 

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-- some more

	if anyone can provide more examples (not just simple
	variants), i'd be grateful.

 	at a fast-food restaurant:
		"You want the Coke or some other Coke?"

 hypothetical TV commercials:
 	"Would you choose a Band-Aid band-aid or any old band-aid?"
 	"It's only natural that Xerox makes great xerox machines."


 Mike Geller <mgeller@avnet.co.uk> wrote:
 >
 > This brings to mind variants on the lines of:
 > "If <so-and-so> didn't exist, we'd have had to invent him"
 >
 	who'd be a typical "<so-and-so>"?

 also reminds me of   "Is Pope Catholic?" and variants.
 where a variant could be,
 "Did Shakespeare write Hamlet and Macbeth?"

 (Hofstadter's example of "maybe it's Marilyn Monroe in the next
 room" (from Seventh-Year Itch, see LTbdM) is also related.)


Harlan Messinger  <gusty@shell.clark.net> wrote:
>
> Then there's the line in The Beatles' "We Can Work It Out" that
> goes, "Why do you see it your way?" Well, if I saw it a
> different way, then THAT would be "my way", so I would STILL be
> seeing it "my way".


 1. what's in a name?  the rose by any other name served Bard as sweet.
 therefore:
 2. if rose were named something else, Eco's book would've still
 	been named after it.
 and
 3. if rose were named Xyphtla, Eco's book would've been named
 	"The Name of The Xyphtla".

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-- analysis

 the common characteristics these GEPs share:

 1. the most straightforward interpretation of the sentence
 	yields falsehood.

 2. and yet, in all these the names (Smucker's, Homer,
	Shakespeare, Clapton) have acquired strong
	connotations/associations that make the sentences
	meaningful and true.

 3. this creates an impression of paradox.

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 -- all eponyms can create similar flavor.
 but they often don't produce a paradoxical feeling.

 --- to say: "XXX is another Charles Keating".

 --- a newspaper headline: "XXX gets Lee Marvined".

 --- from an Economist article: "Japan gets outjapaned by England"

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