What's in a name?

It's Wednesday and as a teacher I like to think of that as the middle of the week, so inevitably that is the day that I choose to clean, as well as at the weekend of course! So that means that I spend extra moments of my interesting life picking up objects to clean underneath. This morning I tackle an interesting Molton Brown spillage or leakage if you will. 'Christopher Columbus' my internal monologue screams (nod to Chappers, I never shout Christopher Columbus either internally or externally!) why does the Molton Brown always leak? The answer of course is that it is the most expensive so can do what it likes until I am gifted some Jo Malone! (Nod, nod, wink, wink.) I glanced sideways at the well-behaved Waitrose Essential shower gel not a drop out of place and thought, bless you if you spilt I would just be screaming, 'Christopher Columbus the shower gel is leaking!'.

So if you are an eponym named after a person or place are you more likely to be memorable? I guess the answer there is whether you are successful or possibly expensive.. Did William Henry Hoover realise that years after his death we would be hoovering rather than vacuum cleaning, even if we were using an inferior product? So his Hoover actually denominalised, changing from a noun to a verb. In years to come will we be dysoning even though we are using a different brand? Or maybe we will abbreviate the word and just dys and eventually dy! Look at what we did with text message. Now shortened to text as a noun but also available as a humble verb. Is that what Neil Papworth thought would happen back in 1992 when he sent that first missive. If he had thought on his feet he could have gained instant fame and we would be Papworthing our friends on a daily basis from our unlimited Papworth deal.

All that from 5 minutes cleaning, roll on the weekend!