Eggcorn Forum

In terms of etymology, pokemon is a clipped and blended version of pocket monster(s). In the cartoon, the monsters live in little spheres, which children (Pokemon Trainers) carry in their pockets. </otaku>

I think Joe is exactly right that Poke man is an analogy to Super man et al. I further think (apropos of (my understanding of) David Tuggy’s argument in the “petty Annie” thread) that reanalyzing a proper name as a phrase adds or changes structural meaning.

I further further think that man for mon is a meaningful change, regardless of whether the latter is taken to be a version of monster or a meaningless syllable within a proper name. That is, since man is clearly a meaningful morpheme in constructions such as Superman and Batman, its use in Pokeman adds new or altered semantic meaning. The fact that Poke is meaningless does not alter the fact that man has generalizable, non-arbitrary semantics different from those of Pokemon.

Pokemon and Mormon are proper nouns? They are capitalized common nouns, aren’t they?

I’m becoming aware that we have a terminology issue. I’ve been using the term “proper noun” in the sense of “a personal name used for direct address or reference, or an unmodifiable name of a specific place or object.” English capitalization rules are not reliable guides to what is and is not a proper noun. The rules of English capitalization were invented to provide employment for copy editors.

Especially with names like Superman, Superwoman, Spiderman, and so forth, it seems perverse to assert that proper nouns (names) lack semantics. A meaningful (semantically non-empty) noun, and an adjective or another noun, are combined in a meaningful way (the adjective or second noun modifies the head noun). And then suddenly, because the combination is used to name an individual, we are supposed to believe that it loses all its semantics?

For the record, I stopped using the line “proper nouns have no semantics” after the first post. The tradition of linguistics that has informed my thinking uses this sentence, and in the context of this tradition it makes an important point. But I see how other traditions define “semantics” in different ways, and for many of them the sentence is a red flag. “Proper nouns have a peculiar semantics” seems to invoke less heat.

Yes, the word “Superman” in the sentence “Superman, watch out for the Kryptonite!” is a proper noun and shares the peculiar semantics of proper nouns. The way it was cobbled together out of “super” and “man” by a comic book writer has little relevance to its syntactical role as a proper noun. Same goes for “Robertson,” “Susan,” and “Patience.” We can explain how each of these proper names were originally confected, just as we can “Superman.”

The public awareness of a name’s confection can affect how easy it is to transform the word into a common noun, of course. If someone say that an outstanding player is “the Superman of his team,” we have no trouble coming up with a lexical meaning for the new common noun. Indeed, if we leave off the capital letter and say “the superman of his team,” even someone with zero knowledge of the man of steel (does such a person exist?) could still make some sense out the phrase. Nietzsche still has his followers. But if I call World War II “the Edith of modern wars,” only an etymologist could parse my meaning.

The “Pencil Vania” example is an odd one. I’d like to see it in a non-punning context before discussing it. But as long as we are talking about the Keystone state, what about “Intercourse, Pennsylvania?” It is proper proper noun. The sniggers we hear are indications that the barrier between proper nouns and common nouns has been penetrated.

Last edited by kem (2009-02-03 12:58:23)

Annie in the sense of “David Tuggy’s friend’s daughter” is a proper noun, but Annie “an impoverished girl; a fictional character symbolizing poverty” is not. Have I got that right?

Yes.

What then of the difference between, say, Mormon “the supposed author of the Book of Mormon” and Mormon “a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints”?

“Mormon,” the author of the Book of Mormon, is a proper name. “Mormon,” referring to a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, is a reference to one of a group, and so not a proper name. One of the easiest ways to tell if the occurrence of a word is a proper name (in English) is to try to modify it with an article. In the line “Ezekiel saw the wheel” we would not say “an/the Ezekiel saw the wheel.” But we would say “a Mormon believes that….”

Pokemon, as a card, is a common noun, just like “queen” or “ace.” As a card game it is also a common noun. “The game of poker/pokemon was a waste of time.” In fact, I’m not sure if Pokemon is ever used as a proper name. I think people get confused about the word because the word is both singular and plural. It does funny things because of the way it has been transfered from Japanese.

kem wrote:

One of the easiest ways to tell if the occurrence of a word is a proper name (in English) is to try to modify it with an article. In the line “Ezekiel saw the wheel” we would not say “an/the Ezekiel saw the wheel.” But we would say “a Mormon believes that….”

and then:

Pokemon, as a card, is a common noun, just like “queen” or “ace.” As a card game it is also a common noun. “The game of poker/pokemon was a waste of time.”

But notice that we say “the game of Pokemon” and not ”* the Pokemon” (in the sense of “the game as such”). Compare: “an appearance of Ezekiel” but not ”* an Ezekiel.”

As the title of a particular product (a game, a cartoon, what have you) Pokemon seems to behave more like a name. As an indefinite or generic element (a card within the game, a character in the cartoon, etc.) it behaves differently.

All of which is simply to say that the question of defining or treating proper nouns becomes quite sticky. I have suggested in the petty Annie thread, however, that the particulars may not be essential to eggcornology.