Here's a linguistic experiment conceived by our friend and counterpart, the
Webrarian. It's Reed's "Naming of Parts" being read as a duet of sorts. The parts in the voice of the Sergeant-Instructor have been re-recorded in an Essex accent, while the voice of the Private is the original recording, read by Reed himself:
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then to have been imitated enough to warrant having your name turned into an adjective must be an embarrassment of riches.
I came across this article this evening, "
Adjectives and the Work of Modernism in an Age of Celebrity" (Project Muse) by Aaron Jaffe, which contains a partial list of authors whose names have been adjectivified, and entered popular use. To these, I would add the term "
Reedsh", coined by Kingsley Amis in 1949 to apologize for sounding too much like Henry Reed.
Let's create a full list. What are some other authorial adjectives? (Must be in the
O.E.D. to qualify!)
- Aeschylean
- Æsopic
- Aristophanic
- Arnoldian
- Audenesque
- Austenian
- Balzacian
- Baudelairean (or Baudelairian)
- Blakean
- Borrovian
- Brechtian
- Brontëan
- Browningesque
- Bunyanesque
- Burnsian
- Byronic
- Carrollese (or Carrollian, or Carrolline)
- Cervantic
- Chattertonian
- Chaucerian
- Chestertonian
- Chekhovian
- Coleridgian
- Conradian
- Dickensian
- Drydenian
- Eliotian
- Emersonian
- Euripidean
- Faulknerian
- Firbankian
- Flaubertian
- Galsworthian
- Gibbonian
- Hardyan (or Hardian)
- Hemingwayan (or Hemingwayesque)
- Homeric
- Huxleyan
- Ibsenian (or Ibsenite)
- Jamesian
- Johnsonian
- Joycean
- Kafkaesque
- Keatsian
- Kiplingesque (or Kiplingish, or Kiplingite)
- Larkinite
- Lawrentian
- Leavisian
- Leveresque (or Leverish)
- Lucianesque (also Lucianic, or Lucianical)
- Malorian
- Marlovian
- Maughamesque
- Melvillean
- Menckenian
- Meredithian
- Miltonic
- Molièresque
- Montaignesque (or Montaignian)
- Murdochian
- Nabokovian
- Orwellian
- Paterian
- Petrarchan
- Pindaric
- Popean
- Poundian
- Proustian
- Ruskinian
- Sapphic
- Shakespearean
- Shavian
- Shelleyan
- Sitwellian
- Spenserian
- Swiftian
- Twainian
- Waughian
- Wellsian
- Wildean
- Woolfian
- Wordsworthian
- Yeatsian
Ibsenite could be some dim, carbon-like mineral, I imagine. A Firbankian is obviously a resident of Firbanks, AK. Brontëan reminds me of some extinct race of malformed giants. Lawrentian: the name of some unplumbed undersea abyss.
(Special thanks to
I Witness, for adjecting!)
