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Educators and parents have been asking us for more School SCRABBLE^® activities. Here they are! Every two weeks, a new page will be posted. We welcome your questions and suggestions. Send them to Cindy McCaffery.

Eponyms

May 21 - June 1, 2001

Describe these eponyms to your students:

bloomers: named for Amelia Bloomer, a feminist organizer, who, in the 1800s was one of the first women to wear pants.

tarantula: a spider named after the town of Taranto, Italy, where it is found in abundance.

xerox: named for the Xerox company, this verb means: to make duplicate copies on a Xerox machine.

Challenge students to discover the origins of these eponyms. Answers are below each word.

frankfurter

Frankfurt, Germany where small sausages are sold on the street.

tarantella

A typical dance from the town of Taranto, Italy

ampere

Andre Ampere, the French physicist who laid the foundations for the science of electrodynamics through his demonstration that electric currents produce magnetic fields. The ampere is the unit for measuring electric current.

cologne

The city of Cologne, Germany where the light perfume was invented.

bowdlerize

Thomas Bowdler who, in the early 1800s, edited Shakespeare's writing to make it less vulgar and fit for family reading.

denim

Cloth from the city of Nimes, France. You can hear denim in "de Nimes" when you say "serge de Nimes" (cloth from Nimes).

Murphy's law

Named for Edward A. Murphy, an engineer. Frustrated with an apparatus that malfunctioned due to improper wiring, Murphy was heard to say, "If there's a way to do something wrong, he (the technician who did the wiring) will find it." The statement, picked up by coworkers, became known as Murphy's Law.

boycott

Charles Boycott, a British army officer who in 1880 ordered the eviction of Irish tenants who asked for rent reductions and refused to pay their full rents on an estate. The Irish refused all communication with Boycott and ostracized his family. The policy was successful, and Boycott was forced to leave. The practice of non-communication became known as boycotting.

guillotine

Joseph Guillotin, a physician, whose invention was originally designed for killing sheep.

macadamia nut

John MacAdam, who discovered a way for cracking open the hard nut.

MISSED AN ISSUE?

Browse our archives for back issues from 2000 (issues #1-8) and 2001 (issue #9 and on).

elsewhere on this web site, you can: find out-of-the-box tips, print score sheets, scorecards and challenge slips or buy a copy of the Official SCRABBLE^® Players Dictionary, Third Edition

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