"Eponymously Yours" w/ A.J. & Greg

Published May 2, 2024, 8:00 AM

Hello, Puzzlers! AJ has a new book coming out! You can pre-order "The Year of Living Constitutionally" right now!.

Puzzling with us today: our very own Chief Puzzle Officer, Greg Pliska.

Join host A.J. Jacobs and his guests as they puzzle–and laugh–their way through new spins on old favorites, like anagrams and palindromes, as well as quirky originals such as “Ask Chat GPT” and audio rebuses.

Subscribe to The Puzzler podcast wherever you get your podcasts! 

"The Puzzler with A.J. Jacobs" is distributed by iHeartPodcasts and is a co-production with Neuhaus Ideas. 

Our executive producers are Neely Lohmann and Adam Neuhaus of Neuhaus Ideas, and Lindsay Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts.

The show is produced by Jody Avirgan and Brittani Brown of Roulette Productions. 

Our Chief Puzzle Officer is Greg Pliska. Our associate producer is Andrea Schoenberg.

Hello, puzzlers, Welcome to the Puzzler Podcast. The ribbon on your tricorn puzzle hat. I'm your host, AJ Jacobs, and I am here with a great Greg Pliska, our chief puzzle officer, who has cooked up something very tricky. I'm told, welcome Greg.

Well, Aj, you know what eponyms are, right, I do know eponyms.

I do like Boycott named after the British guy Boycotts or that's a bad example.

But there are words that that are derived from the name.

From the names of people or or is it only people?

Eponyms would be people.

Demonem's as places.

Well, toponyms are things named for places. What's Domini are the words we use to describe someone or something from a place, like like like British from it would be from Britain. Well, that's not very monicasque. It's the demonym for people from Monaco.

Fun. I guess that one is kind of fun Michigan. Yeah, I guess when you get into the Little Twisty West, that's.

A different episode because there are some fun demonems. We should do demonems sometimes these are eponyms eponyms. One of the great American history eponyms is Jerry Mander of course, right, what you know all about.

Which is, by the way, since I I've just been studying American history for my book The Year of Living Constitutionally. First of all, it is pronounced Gary Mander. And the sad part is he wasn't a terrible founding father. He had some decent ideas, and he himself hated the idea of Jerry or Gary mandering. And when his party made him do this strategy of splitting up.

When he was governor of Massachusetts.

Exactly, he called it all. I believe he called it something like a shame or he was very dismissive of it, but he said, I'll take one for the team and we will split it into these weird shapes that looked like a salamander. That's where the name Jerry Mander because the.

Little shaped object. Is that particular district.

A slippery slidey it was?

It was the South Essex Congressional District.

Actually, oh, is that still around? Want?

I don't know. We'll have to get one of our listeners from South Essex. We'll call in and say correct us on that one.

Yeah, we got to get rid of the Gary Mandarin.

We also get one eponym from the Declaration of Independence. I wonder if you know what that is.

Hmm, let's see. I'm trying to think it.

Has to do with not the content of the declaration, but the stuff at the very bottom of it.

Oh, John hand put you're John Hancock right here, by the way. I always thought John Hancock it was kind of a douchey move signed something. But then I read that a very good defense. There was plenty of room if you look at it at the bottom, so everyone could have everyone could have signed John Hancock hugely and they I mean the myth. The myth is that he wanted it big so that they could see it from England. He never actually said that, but maybe.

He was the boldest doing a douchey move.

He was not doing the douchey move.

Got it, you're thinking he was not.

I am defending John Hankock.

Okay, okay, thank god, somebody here to defend John Hancock. Here in the puzzler, we defend John Hancock when necessary. Anyway, that became the term to put your John Hancock in a document, right right. So I've got some other eponyms here. I'll just describe, give you the definition and you can see if you can tell me who or what the word is, and that's it. You name the eponym. It's a delicious cracker, often crumbled into pie crust. But it originated with a preacher who advocated against pleasure and stimulation of all kinds.

Oh, I actually know that this was featured in another of my books, The Drop Dead Healthy, also available.

Uh, we're just gonna plug each book if you wouln't relate each answer to a bucket.

Sylvester Graham was his name, and he was a nut job. He probably approved of nuts because they were bland enough for him, but he was a very strange man.

Uh at the Puzzler, cutting all your heroes down to side, the douchey John Hancock, the nutjob Sylvester Graham.

I defended John Hancott, you did, I know you? But Sylvester, I'm not going to defend because he had some wack.

But I gave us Graham crackers.

Yeah, yeah, not the ones we have now though. His were extremely bland and tasteless, because that was he thought spicy or tasteful food would excite your libido.

To yes, no excitement here here at the Puzzler, we don't want to excite your libido. All right, here's another one. It's an insult to be called this or to be made to wear this cap, but it's named for one of the most important and surely one of the smartest Christian philosophers of the Middle Ages.

Oh. Interesting, Well, I'm thinking I know the calf. I'm trying to think of the person. I'm not sure I know the person. Is it a Dunce cap.

It is a Dunce cap, yes?

And who is who is the original.

John duns Scotus, Oh I have heard of him? Yeah? His followers argued against Renaissance humanism. Oh okay, so you know.

A little douche in the little investor.

Right, and they earned the epithet duns Right you were you were a dun Scotis follower. You're a Dunce and that being a Dunce someone who was against Renaissance humanism and the kind of birth of knowledge.

All right? Well, yeah, I mean I wonder what he feels about that. I guess he wouldn't be happy.

Probably not happy. That wasn't his goal. So far we got three guys unhappy to be in our puzzle. But I think the next one, this is a positive.

Yeah, positive Okay, what do we got.

John McCain aviator Pete Mitchell and James Gardner's cowboy hustler all owe a debt of gratitude to a Texas rancher who never bothered to brand his cattle, giving ways to this term interesting.

All right, I think I know it because I do remember this was sort of the noe pun intented the branding that John McCain used when he was running for president. He was not just your regular presidential candidate.

He was a maverick and maverick exactly, which is also the title of Tom Cruise's character Pete Mitchell in the films and James Corner's character Maverick exactly. Yeah. So this guy didn't brand his cattle. People would say that cattle over there has got no brand.

That's a maverick, right, and it does have kind of a positive like anti hero flavor, now, like yeah, you want to even though just being different by itself does not make you good. So I would argue it could be a very bad maverick, like there are some absolutely true.

It could be a you know, I'd like to spin it in the style of you know, you're willing to go against the flow, willing to think outside the box, which is good here on the Puzzler.

And I guess I do approve of not branding your cattle because it's painful for the cattle.

So the right, Yes, a positive spin on everything except for uh Sylvester Graham, all right. Two more, Lady Gaga wrote a song about these celebrity photographers whose name comes from a character in Fellini's La dulce Vita, whose name, in turn comes from a randomly chosen name and a nineteen oh one travel guide.

Oh interesting, I do think I know that one, and I think that it is paparazzi or pop paparazzo.

Yes, paparazzi is the word we're looking for. But yes, the character was Coriolano paparazzo.

Right, and he was a photographer.

He was a character in the movie uh, La dulce Vita.

And what was the original pope?

There was a travel guide when they were looking for they picked up this travel guide and found this name and said, let's just use it in the movie.

Interesting.

I kind of love that the way language. You know, here's this random thing that gets put into this you know, into this film that then becomes a word that we use in the English language.

Yeah, and it's such a great word too. It sounds so fun to say.

Yeah, Pop Pop Prassi, there could be a word in your book that's coming out.

Wouldn't that be nice?

It's turned into a one hundred years from now people are going to be saying.

It kind of well, there are some great eighteenth century words that I do talk like Grumbletonian grumble. They like grumbleton, I mean, which means someone who grumbles a lot, sort of a sour puss. So yeah, there are a lot of great one hundred.

Years from now they're going to be, oh, you did a Jacobs and yeah, I read the entire you know, I read a whole book.

Yeah, I hope that's a positive.

We'll say, you don't want to be a duncer at Graham, you want to be a Jacob's last one, I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today. Popeye was strong enough to ignore this plea. But if you're not, you'll get called this.

Oh interesting. I've done no idea that this was from, So you're saying this was just from Yeah, and I believe the character is wimp or wimpy.

Wimpy is the character j Wellington Wimpy interesting?

And then how did that come about?

I don't know exactly how it evolved, but it was the game from Jay Wellington Wimpy, who's the character in the Thimble Theater cartoon character who would say that interesting? And if you were being wimpy, you were not being strong in contrast to Popeye, he was strong. And you know E. C. Cigar Cigar se g A r. Who who created those characters, also spawned the word goon from a hairy female warrior called Alice the Goon. And the word jeep. Olive Oil had a magical pet, Eugene the jeep, and that's where the name jeep came.

From, way jeep, as in j e e p j e ep. That's interesting because I had heard and it could be like a false etymology. There's general wait, it came from the army. It was a general purpose vehicle, a drap vehicle. But there are a lot of these fun etymologies that sound like they should be true, like posh port over starboard Home.

Yea was one.

They're fun stories, whether or not they're true.

Be totally inaccurate, but they're fun. We'll take it here at the Puzzler. Totally inaccurate but fun. Great. Well, there you go, well done. You got them all, all right?

I feel good. I don't often get them all when you are the puzzle giver, but today.

You're I do have an extra credit for our listeners at home. Out damned spot became out crimson spot, and by replacing all the offensive terms in Shakespeare, the last name of this Victorian editor of Family Shakespeare, gave us a new word.

Interesting. What if out crimson spot is better? It kind of is. It's like more visual to me, So maybe he actually improved it.

Yeah, I should say it would have been it would have been said out damned spot. Right, so you kept the syllables direct crimson and damn about damned spot an out crimson spot?

Love it all right? Well, folks, tune in tomorrow to get the answer to that eponym stumper. One last thing to all the puzzlers in the New York area, if you are interested in the puzzle of our democracy, please come to a talk that I am giving. It is on May ninth at the ninety second Street y It's free, and I'll be talking about my new book, The year of living constitutionally with New York's Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado. It is free, but you have to register for a ticket. So just google aj Jacobs and the ninety second Street Why and the site should pop up. I will see you there, I hope. And please subscribe to the Puzzler podcast. It really helps if you rate us or even review us. So consider that if you like the show, and we'll meet you here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.

Hey, puzzlers, it's your chief puzzle Officer, Greg Pliska here with the extra credit answer from our previous episode. Noel Brown did some dit Lloyd's with us and we had an extra credit clue for you. That was this the ten p of e that of course refers to the ten plagues of Egypt. May your day be plague free and puzzler full.

The Puzzler with A.J. Jacobs

Finally, your daily puzzle fix—in audio form! Every day, New York Times bestselling author A.J. Jaco 
Social links
Follow podcast
Recent clips
Browse 392 clip(s)