We are considering plural nouns of Latin pedigree ending in -iana. McEvoy
rightly notes that for "McEvoy" we may have:
i. He is a McEvoyian.
ii. He is a McEvoyist.
iii. He is just McEvoyesque.
(Wittgensteinian questions: "McEvoy cannot be McEvoyian" -- "a spoon cannot
look like a spoon". "McEvoy: can he be the first McEvoyist?". McEvoy
displayed his McEvoyesque erudition about thing Popperesque; but to say that
McEvoy his self is McEvoyesque may seem otiose, to some.").
It is only out of (i) that you can derive "McEvoyiana".
It may be different for Vendler (since it all started with Vendler).
If I claim that his (Vendler's) claim to fame is his nominalisations, I can
speak of
iv. Vendlerian nominalisation
v. Vendlerist nominalisation. He loved them. That's why people call him a
Vendlerist.
vi. Vendleresque nominalisations: he overuses them.
Etymologically, "Vendler" has a meaning -- and -ish is another possibility
as the "etc" by McEvoy testifies. So we can speak of a
viii. Vendlerish way of nominalising.
and so forth.
It all started, as with say, strictly, with Helen Vendler, and L. J. Helm
referring to Helen Vendler's husband, Zeno Vendler.
There are at least three Zenos who were philosophers. Two are covered by
Diogenes Laertius:
There's ZENO (c. 490 – c. 430 BC). He was a citizen of Elea. Apollodorus
in his Chronology says that he was the son of Teleutagoras by birth, but of
Parmenides by adoption, while Parmenides was the son of Pyres. Of Zeno and
Melissus Timon 1 speaks thus: Great Zeno's strength which, never known to
fail,/On each side urged, on each side could prevail/In marshalling arguments
Melissus too,/More skilled than many a one, and matched by few. Zeno,
then, was all through a pupil of Parmenides and his bosom friend. He was tall
in stature, as Plato says in his Parmenides.
Then there's ZENO (333-261 B.C.), the son of Mnaseas (or Demeas), was a
native of Citium in Cyprus, a Greek city which had received Phoenician
settlers. He had a wry neck, says Timotheus of Athens in his book On Lives.
Moreover, Apollonius of Tyre says he was lean, fairly tall, and swarthy--hence
some one called him an Egyptian vine-branch, according to Chrysippus in the
first book of his Proverbs. He had thick legs ; he was flabby and delicate.
Hence Persaeus in his Convivial Reminiscences relates that he declined
most invitations to dinner. They say he was fond of eating green figs and of
basking in the sun.
And then of course there's Zeno Vendler, born in Hungary some time later.
Some philosophers, in English, since 1843, have been using "Zenonian" to
refer to anything pertaining to either one of two Greek thinkers: Zeno of
Elea ("Zeno of the Paradoxes," 5c. B.C.E.), who disproved the possibility of
motion; or Zeno of Citium (c. 300 B.C.E.), founder of stoicism.
This is due that they lacked surnames, as we know them. Vendler didn't:
hence while Zenonian could be used to refer to Zeno Vendler's theory ("if you
are on a first-name terms with him"), it's more practical to use
Vendlerian, which gives Vendleriana.
In a message dated 8/13/2015 1:07:46 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes about the adjective "McEvoyian" that there
are
other possibilities -- note his "etc.":
"McEvoyesque", "McEvoyist", "etc."
I suppose this applies to all surnames: hence Vendleresque, and
Vendlerist.
One online site states that
surnames.meaning-of-names.com/vendler/
"The history of "Vendler" originates from a unknown background."
which isn't perhaps helpful, but interesting from a Popperian analysis: in
other words, the history of the surname "Vendler" originates SOMEHOW, and
to claim that it's an unknown background is merely a W2 statement. In W3 we
may assume that it is not unknown.
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