what’s in a name?

SOME EVERYDAY ITEMS YOU DIDN’T KNOW WERE NAMED AFTER ACTUAL PEOPLE.

CARDIGAN

As a designer of comfortable knitwear, James Brudenell, the seventh Earl of Cardigan, showed outstanding promise. As a military strategist, not so much. In 1854, during the Crimean War’s Battle of Balaclava, Lord Cardigan glanced at a bristling line of well-defended Russian artillery; gestured heroically to his cavalry, indicating that they would attempt to seize it; then galloped headlong towards the cannons on his horse, Ronald. The men (and probably Ronald) were sceptical, but charged with him, anyway. The moment became known as the Charge of the Light Brigade, immortalised by the British poet Alfred Tennyson. Although most of Cardigan’s troops were blown into small pieces, he and Ronald returned to Britain as national heroes (it turns out suicidal charges make for great poetry). Cardigan didn’t have much time for ‘tactics’, but he did have time for tailoring. The Earl dipped into his personal fortune to kit out his officers in cosy woollen waistcoats with an open front – ideal for the freezing Russian weather. The garments came to be known as ‘Cardigan jackets’, and eventually just ‘cardigans’. They kept out the cold (but not the bullets), were spiffy and practical, and, once sleeves were added, went on to sell like proverbial hotcakes around the world.

GUILLOTINE

You have to feel for Dr Joseph-ignace Guillotin. When the French inventor and humanitarian died in 1814, his only legacy was a device that made it easier to decapitate people. And Guillotin was actually opposed to capital punishment! In 1789, he went to the new French government and argued, tactfully, that chopping rich people’s heads off with axes wasn’t very humane. Instead, he proposed something much more efficient and reliable: a machine that would deliver lightning-quick head-chopping over and over again, for rich and poor alike. The general heavy-blade-falling-on-neck idea had been around since the Middle Ages, but Guillotin worked with French doctor Antoine Louis and German harpsichord maker Tobias Schmidt to perfect the design.

Et voilà! The ‘guillotine’ was born. And in the niche field of decapitation, it worked really, really well. Guillotin’s machine claimed its first victim in 1792, and didn’t stop falling in France until 1977. The good doctor was horrified (we’re not sure what he expected people to do with the guillotine – make fruit salad?), and his family later petitioned the French government to change the machine’s name, thus severing their ties to the murderous device. They were unsuccessful. C’est la vie.

NACHOS

Next time you’re inhaling a plate of nachos, spare a thought for Ignacio ‘El Nacho’ Anaya García, the genius who looked at some tortillas, cheese and jalapeños and thought, “What the hell do I do with this stuff?” OK, the story goes more like this: in 1943, Ignacio (or ‘Nacho’ to his mates) was maître d’ at the Victory Club in Piedras Negras, Mexico, just over the Texan border. Late one night, a group of army wives arrived from the nearby US Army base Fort Duncan, looking for dinner. With the chef nowhere to be found, Ignacio abandoned his post and chopped and deep-fried some corn tortillas, sprinkling cheese and pickled jalapeños on top. He called the meal

‘Nachos especiales’ (after himself, naturally), and it was so well-received that it spread throughout Texas and the US southern states, eventually sparking mainstream attention in 1978, thanks to sportscaster Howard Cosell, who raved about ‘nachos’ at a local NFL game. Alas, ‘El Nacho’ never lived to see his creation take over the world. When he died in 1975, the folks of Piedras Negras erected a bronze plaque in his honour, and it was decreed that henceforth and forevermore, October 21 would be the International Day of the Nacho.

BLOOMERS

If you’re a bit hazy on the original concept of bloomers, ask your nan – she probably wore them at some stage. Bloomers were baggy undergarment-cum-trouser things, usually made of cotton, that became popular in the mid-19th century thanks to women’s rights activist Amelia Jenks Bloomer. In Amelia’s day, well-to-do dames didn’t wear pants, you see. Men were vaguely aware that women had legs, but they didn’t need to know where they were all the time. In the 1800s, most ladies walked around in multi-layered petticoats like mysterious, asexual cakes. So, when Amelia Bloomer appeared in public wearing loose-fitting trousers with a knee-length skirt on top

– all in the name of promoting freedom of movement for ladies – you can bet there was some serious twisting of moustaches and raising of bushy eyebrows. But you can’t stop progress, and the practical benefits were obvious: aside from being warm and comfortable, women found it far easier to get around (Bloomer’s neighbour Elizabeth Cady Stanton described it as “a captive set free from his ball and chain”.) Over time, the bloomer trend gave way to a focus on more pressing feminist issues, but the name remained. Nowadays, bloomers are better known as the modesty-protecting garment worn under a netball skirt.

SILHOUETTE

Étienne de Silhouette did not have an easy job. As French finance minister in the mid-18th century – a time when the country was emerging from the Seven Years’ War with Great Britain – it was his job to turn oodles of accumulated debt into some sort of functional economic policy. His solution was thus: take more money from the French people, particularly wealthy types with plenty to splash around. Silhouette’s 1760 budget was Greek-austerity-level grim. He started taxing things deemed ‘external signs of wealth’, like doors and windows, luxury goods, farms and even (gasp!) profits. He melted down gold and silverware belonging to the nobility, too. This obviously pissed off a lot of rich people, including the French aristocracy, who assumed money was something poor people sort of grew, like turnips. Silhouette’s penny-pinching led to ‘à la Silhouette’ becoming the term for anything cheap, including the cut-out paper shadow portraits people bought when they couldn’t afford oil paintings. The name kind of stuck. Silhouette’s novel brand of socialism did not (see earlier for: guillotine), and neither did his governmental position – he was ousted as finance minister in a matter of months.

SAXOPHONE

Compared to most instruments, the saxophone is relatively newfangled.

It was invented around 1840 by Belgian instrumentalist Adolphe Sax. Sax was already pretty handy with the flute and clarinet, but he felt like there was a sound missing from the acoustic world. Something that combined the ear-melting volume of brass (think the toots of trumpets and tubas) with the moody subtlety of woodwind (like the rich warble of oboes and clarinets). He experimented with brass clarinets and other gizmos before eventually designing an entire family of unique instruments: the 'saxophones'. There were 14 different models in his original patent, ranging from the deep-noted ‘F Contrabass’ all the way up to the pint-sized, high-pitched ‘Eb Sopranino’. When he debuted the saxophone at Paris’s Industrial Exhibition in 1844, it got the same stunned reception that Marty Mcfly received while rocking out at the Enchantment Under the Sea high-school dance. For the first time ever, orchestral music was groovy. Unfortunately, one thing Sax sucked at was patent law. When his trademark expired in 1866, the musical world spent the next 60 years pillaging his original design, and the Belgian inventor was declared bankrupt twice before his death in 1894.