“One day Santorum will join this gallery,” writes Slog tipper Blair. My favorite person-to-noun:

Vidkun Quisling betrayed Norway to Nazi Germany and became leader of occupied Norway’s collaborationist government. He was executed by firing squad by his countrymen after the war. His very name, quisling, has come to mean “traitor.”

Sucked to be a non-collaborating Norwegian Quisling after the war, no doubt.

26 replies on “Life Magazine: “People Who Became Nouns””

  3. It would suck to be a Quisling today, anywhere in the eurocentric world. The meaning of the word is so ingrained in the languages and cultures of europe that people who don’t even know who Vidkun Quisling was, know that the word means traitor.

  11. I’ve always felt sorry for the “Hitler” families I’ve come across in the censuses, 1930 and earlier. I’m wagering they’ll mostly be gone by the 1940 one when it’s released later this year.

  12. @10 I don’t think Benjamin would stand scrutiny as eponymous. “Benjamin” in regards to cash is so called because his face is on the bill, not because he had anything to do with its creation or because he was known as someone who used large denominations of money.

    Consider Maverick and Boycott. Maverick didn’t brand his horses; he allegedly thought it was cruel. So now a Maverick is someone who bucks tradition or goes it alone. Boycott was boycotted.

  14. There are 0 people in Norway, Sweden and Denmark with the last name Quisling… It really means “traitor” in everyday langauge on the other hand like actually MEANS it. You can say “he is such a quisling”.

    So we have some ways to go before we can actually say “and I got santorum AAAALLL over the bed”

  16. Looking at the list of definitions in that Life gallery, one thing becomes clear. If you really want santorum to get real legs as a word, it needs at least one more auxiliary definition, one that could have more general application, one that generalizes the original definition. Perhaps something along the lines of:

    1b. Any particularly obnoxious or disgusting liquid or viscous substance.

    I already see this in SLOG usage. It might as well be part of the definition.

  17. @16 Usage example: “That old head of lettuce was turning into santorum, so I put it on the compost pile.”

    Vividly descriptive while still being concise and economical. See?

  18. @ 8, since “Benedict Arnold,” and not plain old “Arnold” became the synonym for traitor, people with Arnold for a surname escaped that fate.

    Varg Vikernes, psychopathic Norwegian Black Metal musician, claims Quisling was a distant relative and has made Quisling part of his name.

  20. @ 19, I hope that’s parody. I kinda doubt it – it reads more like a basement warrior trying to “take it” to Dan Savage, and one who won’t stick around and make another comment here.

  23. @14, but what happened to Vidkun Quisling’s family in Norway after the war? Didn’t he, like, have a wife and children? Or parents, brothers, sisters, etc. with the family name Quisling? Did the Quislings at some point decide to change their names, after “quisling” = “traitor” became a common word?

  24. Charles C. Boycott. English landlord during the Irish “land war.” people avoided buying goods that funneled money to his land, using the term “boycott” to discuss their strategy.

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