Dating of "mud flap"?

[Laurence Horn]

>So we can expect a back-formation here? "a burlesque show featuring
>Rubenesque entertainers, so-called because amply-proportioned women were
>often chosen as models by the painter Peter Paul Ruben"?

Well, "Platonic" has been around since 1533 and "Shavian" since 1904,
and I don't see any signs of "Platon" or "Shav", so perhaps Rubens is
safe from eviction by back-formation for a while longer.

Larry

>
>At 7/12/2005 03:09 PM, you wrote:
>>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>>Subject:      Re: Dating of "mud flap"?
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>>Thank you, AM.  (The painter is not PPRuben or even PPRubin.)
>>
>>No, he's Rubens.  But what follows from that?  Would you insist on
>>"monstrousity" rather than "monstrosity" because, after all, it's the
>>quality of being monstrous, not montros?  If so, shouldn't we also
>>require "monsterous" rather than "montstrous"?  And hence
>>"monsterousity"?  What distinguishes this case from others in which
>>readjustment rules apply in word-formation, e.g. "Shavian" and, yes,
>>"Rubenesque"?  Do you insist on "Platoic" rather than "Platonic" on
>>the grounds that we (in English) don't call him Platon?  Saying that
>>the painter's name is "Rubens" is true but not necessarily sufficient.
>>
>>L
>>
>>>At 7/12/2005 12:03 PM, you wrote:
>>>>Well, yeah, since you mention it, "Rubensesque," which ain't that hard to
>>>>say, does call PPRubens to mind more readily than Rubenesque, which sounds
>>>>more like corned-beef-&-sauerkraut (even though spelled differently)!
>>>>AM