okay, without looking it up...

[clauclauclaudia]

Does this usage of eponymous seem okay to you or not? Why?

[blah blah Chekhov on film] "Based on his eponymous 1891 novella, THE DUEL gives life to a classic Chekhovian tale...."

All right. Look it up if you want to, but let me know if you do.

I'm screening comments for a bit to get independent answers, but I'll unscreen them soonish. [Edit: slow unscreening now complete.]

Comments

exactly

[clauclauclaudia]

I had thought eponymous meant strictly "self-titled", like "Melissa Etheridge", the album. It's slightly broader than that, but it does mean something named after a particular person. I believe The Duel not to be a person. ;-)

[kjc.livejournal.com]

No, cuz eponymous means something like "the same name of" so in this context, the novella would've had to have been named Chekhov.

There's a difference between "the same name of" and "having the same name as" and it's subtle, but definitely not working the way the sentence is currently worded.

not quite...

[clauclauclaudia]

Though that's certainly common usage these days. But it does mean named after a person.

almost!

[clauclauclaudia]

I think I would go with "titular" in the Crowe sentence. Eponymous means named for a specific person, and I'm not sure Gladiator qualifies. It certainly comes miles closer than The Duel, though.

pretty close

[clauclauclaudia]

As I am definitionally in pedantic mode with this post, I'll give you a "correct but incomplete". ;-) See my earlier replies.

Re: off the top of my head

[clauclauclaudia]

Not quite. Your example sentence is equally bad to my ears. An eponym is always a person (or, well, entity, in the case of band names).

Yay, it's official!

[clauclauclaudia]

I'm so glad.

[clauclauclaudia]

I *heart* it too. :)

[clauclauclaudia]

Indeed.

[clauclauclaudia]

Fair enough! I thought I'd preserved enough context, but I see what you mean.

[zdenka]

No. I think it should say "Based on his 1891 novella of the same name". Unless there is a character named The Duel. ;-)

I would accept a usage such as, "In Alexandre Dumas's novel The Count of Monte Cristo, the eponymous hero believes his revenge is ordained by Providence."

[clauclauclaudia]

*tsk-tsk*

[clauclauclaudia]

*bow*

I had considered banning all classicist types from answering but settled for screening comments early on instead. :)

[sarcasma.livejournal.com]

LOL. :)

As soon as I read it I had an editing flashback. I know I have a lot of usage ticks, so I look things up CONSTANTLY. Fortunately, I'm aware of most of them, or at least, some part of my brain that is highly instinctive but also deeply versed in proper usage shouts WAIT NO LOOK OUT DANGER and I go get the books.

I admit to being surprised at how many of your readers immediately thought "What no WRONG" but I posit that your readers != average cross-section of random readers. So, the lesson is also "know your audience." :D

[emmacrew.livejournal.com]

This.

[clauclauclaudia]

Yay the brain warning. I have a similar "wait no" when touch-typing so that the errors that get through are largely thinkos instead of typos. :) That comes very close to muscle memory, actually.

And yes, I *heart* my flist.

[clauclauclaudia]

You seem to be the most usage-forgiving of my friends list, so far. :)

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

No. If the novella was titled 'Chekhov's Duel' or similar, maybe.

'Chekhovian tale' is valid, sure, but not the novella.

[zdenka]

What, just 'cuz I know what an eponym actually is . . . ?

Here, have an icon of another eponymous character.

[dot_fennel]

To expand: I googled [["based on * eponymous"]] and was like, whoa, millions of hits? But on looking at them, I realized it was, broadly speaking, a usage I see all the time, and don't remember ever looking twice at before.

The factors I mentioned *seem* to be what separate good sentences from bad in my head, but whether those guesses are right or not, it's pretty clear that the rule I pedantically want to insist on is not the rule I usually actually apply when reading.

So that's interesting!

Also, it occurs to me that changing the order would normally make it a lot harder for a writer to use "his" instead of "the". I think you'd have to find some way to stick the writer's name between the title and the pronoun, like

"THE DUEL is one of Chekhov's finest cinematic moments, based on his eponymous 1891 novella..."

I mean, even then I don't like it much stylistically, but I'm much less sure I've even run into it in the wild.

[eefster.livejournal.com]

Though I've already seen the correct answer at this point, this was the reaction I had, too.

Re: pretty close

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I am now edified. :-)

[lil-brown-bat.livejournal.com]

I'd say no, for two reasons. One is that I always think of "eponymous" as referring to things that are very different from their namesake (example: Frankfurt (a city) is the eponym of frankfurter (a food)). A film and a book are the same thing in different media. Also, the usage is bizarre: "Based on his eponymous 1891 novel" makes it almost sound as if the novel (the antecedent) was somehow planned to have a namesake ("gee, I think I'll write an eponymous novel!"), whereas of course anything is only eponymous after the fact. I'd say it's a case of strained diction from someone who likes the word and forced a fit where "the novel of the same name" would probably have worked better.

[clauclauclaudia]

Hee. Well, yes.

Hm, this may be the only eponym I have icons of, and it's stretching the meaning at that.

[clauclauclaudia]

Mm, yes. Your last sentence matches my initial reaction precisely. Outside chance they think the word is an exact replacement for "of the same name" or something--thesaurus disease.

It was, btw, an e-mail from the Brattle Theatre.