A purebred eponym? That’s rare. Writers get their toes wet, appearing as adjectives such as Dickensian, Byronic or Austentatious (David Astle fudged that last one). Cute, but not a bona fide eponym | The latest WordPlay column
You don’t often meet an eponym. That’s someone who’s a word in the dictionary, a concept, a syndrome, an effect. Or a number in the case of Professor Robin Dunbar, the Oxford anthropologist who calculated how many friends and connections our neurons can handle. Go on – have a guess.
And so the circles go, radiating like pond ripples, in-laws and outliers included, strong ties and weak, reaching the Dunbar total best defined as “the number of people you would not feel embarrassed about joining uninvited for a drink if you happened to bump into them in a bar.” Chances are, you’ll remember their names at least.