But when people say something’s “Kafkaesque” they’re alluding to the situations that he wrote about, and not to Kafka himself. Maybe “Escheresque” would be a better word?
Heavens no. Should be “Escherian”. When in comes to names, the suffix “-esque” is a faute-de-mieux stopgap that should be reserved for cases where “-ian” doesn’t work (as in Kafka) or already has another meaning (“Arabesque” vs. “Arabian”).
On the other point, if one were to say, disapprovingly, that somebody has “a Kafka-like mind”, my reaction would be the same, for the same reason.
No! Boo that! The suffix “-esque” actually means “in the style or manner of”. The suffix “-ian” is a catchall that just means “of or relating too”. “Escherian” would be reserved for purposes where there is no appropriate suffix. For example, collectors of Escher’s estate are interested in “Escherian memorabilia”. Perhaps the group the gets together every month to discuss his work is the “Escherian society”. If you have a piece of language that removes ambiguity, use it!
Well, I did specifically allow disambiguation as an excuse for using -esque (as in “arabesque”).
I don’t believe for a moment that all the people who characterize the behavior of smirking, mendacious politicians as “Clintonesque” are doing so because of a fear that “Clintonian” would be ambiguous. What’s really going on here is that “-ian” requires a change in the stress pattern of the root, which is apparently the sort of thing that causes people’s brains to crash. Meanwhile, having heard somebody use the term “Kafkaesque”, they think they’ve discovered a suffix for the general purpose of making adjectives from names that doesn’t require any alteration of the root.
“Escherian society/memorabilia” is pretentious (and underspecific!) and should be replaced by “Escher society/memorabilia”.
Hmmm. There are four criteria I usually consider in these discussions- 1. Traditional “proper” English grammar, 2. De facto usage, 3. Pragmatics, language that makes it easier to say things is good language, we should have it. 4. Aesthetics.
I can’t seem to find formation rules for eponymous adjectives anywhere on the internet. I will therefore assume they don’t exist. So my evidence just consists of the list. There do seem to be some patterns like if a word ends in “on” the right suffix is “-ic” (except then Smithsonian should be Smithsonic!). Names that end in “er” tend to add -ian but there are exceptions. “-esque” appears to be much more common for painters, pop musicians and artists in general. This is also true of words that use -esque but aren’t eponymous like “picturesque” and “statuesque”. See here.
This might be the only thing that matters. As you can see in that second link, Escheresque is already in use. It has it’s own Wiktionary page. Escheresque dominates the google battle.
The problem is that since “-ian” is so flexible there is the possibility of ambiguity in a lot of cases. And “-esque” is has a particular meaning that “-ian” does not have by itself. It’s a useful piece of language.
Basically the case for “Escherian” rests on liking the tradition of altering the root instead of the Newspeak-esque rule of just adding a single suffix on to any noun. I like this tradition very much. I even agree that the practice of tacking on “-esque” to things just to turn them into adjectives is bad form. But I’m not trying to get rid of “Escherian”. I’m just saying it doesn’t mean the same thing as Escheresque. Something can be Escherian and still not resemble the works of Escher. The Escherian society, example (and of course the name is pretentious! They spend their evenings discussing M.C. Escher!). Or say Escher had spawned a whole school of art dedicated to his principles. Their works may or not be Escheresque but the school would “Escherian”. Note that “Escheresque” can’t be used in that way. And that’s a good thing.
Afaict this is a pretty general principle as well. You might write a book in a rhetorical style that reminds me of Nietzsche. I could then say that your writing was “Nietzsche-esque”, even if your positions were far from Nietzschean.
I agree with the four criteria you cited above. To be competent enough in using English, one must not only master the grammar, but also incorporate to it the ideas of pragmatics, de facto and aesthetics. Among the last bastions of everything approaching, reward for knowledge of the English language, it is Scrabble, and now it’s under assault. Rather, at least it is in England. A new variation of Scrabble, called Scrabble Trickster, enables proper nouns to be used, which is awful because that means that Scrabble, which used to mostly be won by having an intensive vocabulary, can now be perfected by simply naming enough brand names, which is disgusting. Needless to say, many believe the school system needs at least a few payday cash advances worth in improvements—if one person thinks “irregardless” is a word, there’s a problem.
Probably better to say “Escher-painting-like mind” lest we unnecessarily cast aspersions on the man himself.
But when people say something’s “Kafkaesque” they’re alluding to the situations that he wrote about, and not to Kafka himself. Maybe “Escheresque” would be a better word?
Heavens no. Should be “Escherian”. When in comes to names, the suffix “-esque” is a faute-de-mieux stopgap that should be reserved for cases where “-ian” doesn’t work (as in Kafka) or already has another meaning (“Arabesque” vs. “Arabian”).
On the other point, if one were to say, disapprovingly, that somebody has “a Kafka-like mind”, my reaction would be the same, for the same reason.
No! Boo that! The suffix “-esque” actually means “in the style or manner of”. The suffix “-ian” is a catchall that just means “of or relating too”. “Escherian” would be reserved for purposes where there is no appropriate suffix. For example, collectors of Escher’s estate are interested in “Escherian memorabilia”. Perhaps the group the gets together every month to discuss his work is the “Escherian society”. If you have a piece of language that removes ambiguity, use it!
Well, I did specifically allow disambiguation as an excuse for using -esque (as in “arabesque”).
I don’t believe for a moment that all the people who characterize the behavior of smirking, mendacious politicians as “Clintonesque” are doing so because of a fear that “Clintonian” would be ambiguous. What’s really going on here is that “-ian” requires a change in the stress pattern of the root, which is apparently the sort of thing that causes people’s brains to crash. Meanwhile, having heard somebody use the term “Kafkaesque”, they think they’ve discovered a suffix for the general purpose of making adjectives from names that doesn’t require any alteration of the root.
“Escherian society/memorabilia” is pretentious (and underspecific!) and should be replaced by “Escher society/memorabilia”.
Hmmm. There are four criteria I usually consider in these discussions- 1. Traditional “proper” English grammar, 2. De facto usage, 3. Pragmatics, language that makes it easier to say things is good language, we should have it. 4. Aesthetics.
I can’t seem to find formation rules for eponymous adjectives anywhere on the internet. I will therefore assume they don’t exist. So my evidence just consists of the list. There do seem to be some patterns like if a word ends in “on” the right suffix is “-ic” (except then Smithsonian should be Smithsonic!). Names that end in “er” tend to add -ian but there are exceptions. “-esque” appears to be much more common for painters, pop musicians and artists in general. This is also true of words that use -esque but aren’t eponymous like “picturesque” and “statuesque”. See here.
This might be the only thing that matters. As you can see in that second link, Escheresque is already in use. It has it’s own Wiktionary page. Escheresque dominates the google battle.
The problem is that since “-ian” is so flexible there is the possibility of ambiguity in a lot of cases. And “-esque” is has a particular meaning that “-ian” does not have by itself. It’s a useful piece of language.
Basically the case for “Escherian” rests on liking the tradition of altering the root instead of the Newspeak-esque rule of just adding a single suffix on to any noun. I like this tradition very much. I even agree that the practice of tacking on “-esque” to things just to turn them into adjectives is bad form. But I’m not trying to get rid of “Escherian”. I’m just saying it doesn’t mean the same thing as Escheresque. Something can be Escherian and still not resemble the works of Escher. The Escherian society, example (and of course the name is pretentious! They spend their evenings discussing M.C. Escher!). Or say Escher had spawned a whole school of art dedicated to his principles. Their works may or not be Escheresque but the school would “Escherian”. Note that “Escheresque” can’t be used in that way. And that’s a good thing.
Afaict this is a pretty general principle as well. You might write a book in a rhetorical style that reminds me of Nietzsche. I could then say that your writing was “Nietzsche-esque”, even if your positions were far from Nietzschean.
I agree with the four criteria you cited above. To be competent enough in using English, one must not only master the grammar, but also incorporate to it the ideas of pragmatics, de facto and aesthetics. Among the last bastions of everything approaching, reward for knowledge of the English language, it is Scrabble, and now it’s under assault. Rather, at least it is in England. A new variation of Scrabble, called Scrabble Trickster, enables proper nouns to be used, which is awful because that means that Scrabble, which used to mostly be won by having an intensive vocabulary, can now be perfected by simply naming enough brand names, which is disgusting. Needless to say, many believe the school system needs at least a few payday cash advances worth in improvements—if one person thinks “irregardless” is a word, there’s a problem.
Well, Escherian has the unfortunate connection with E.Coli, the usually harmless bacterium that gets a lot of bad press.
Adjective connected to the bacterium would be Escherichian.