The world's toughest language game.
Apr 21, 2025
This week¡¯s theme
Dickensian eponyms
This week¡¯s words
¡°I don¡¯t want to know about it; I don¡¯t choose to discuss it; I don¡¯t admit it.¡±
Podsnap in Dickens¡¯ Gallery, included with Cope¡¯s C¦Égarettes
Image:
Previous week¡¯s theme
A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg
Imagine the world about 200 years ago. No
Friends on television, no
Squid Game on Netflix, not even instant downloads of the latest novels
on your Kindle.
This was the world in which Charles Dickens published his stories, often
one chapter at a time. Cliffhangers weren¡¯t just a plot device, they
were a publishing strategy. Dickens had a knack for creating unforgettable
characters. Readers didn¡¯t just love the characters, they started using
their names in everyday speech. Thus were born Dickensian eponyms --
words born from names.
Now it¡¯s your turn: Do you have a favorite character from fiction?
If this character became a word, what would it mean? Would Gatsby be
a noun for someone who throws parties they don¡¯t enjoy? Would Sherlocking
mean excessive Googling before a first date?
Share on our or email
us at words@.... Include your location (city, state).
Podsnap
PRONUNCIATION:
(POD-snap)
MEANING:
noun: A smug, self-satisfied person.
ETYMOLOGY:
After John Podsnap, a character in Charles Dickens¡¯ novel Our Mutual
Friend (1865). Earliest documented use: 1865.
NOTES:
Podsnap is a pompous, jingoistic character, proudly immune to nuance.
As Dickens describes him, ¡°Mr Podsnap was well-to-do, and stood very high in
Mr Podsnap¡¯s opinion. ... Mr Podsnap¡¯s world was not a very large world,
morally; no, nor even geographically: seeing that although his business was
sustained upon commerce with other countries, he considered other countries,
with that important reservation, a mistake.¡±
As Podsnap himself adds, ¡°No Other Country is so Favoured as This Country.
... This Island was Blest, Sir, to the Direct Exclusion of such Other
Countries as -- as there may happen to be.¡±
Podsnap, the walking embodiment of moral myopia in a world so tight no
unpleasant facts gets through.
USAGE:
¡°Podsnaps are delighted that England is breaking away from the continent,
with its meddling bureaucrats and Napoleonic legal code (Podsnaps may
say ¡®Britain¡¯ but they really mean ¡®England¡¯).¡±
Podsnappery and its Reverse; The Economist (London, UK); Jun 23, 2018.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Neither great poverty nor great riches will hear reason. -Henry Fielding,
author (21 Apr 1707-1754)
Or email us at words@...
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