Hard to believe it was all the way back in 2002 that Steven Bradbury became the first Australian to win a Gold Medal at an Olympic Winter Games, and, in the process, gave us a timeless piece of vernacular to describe being in the right place at the right time to achieve an unexpected victory.
From the post:
Over the years the names of many individual people have added colour to the Australian English vocabulary. The technical term for words deriving from people’s names is eponym (from the Greek epi ‘upon’ + onoma ‘name’). Eponymous people in Australian English include Anna Pavlova (ballerina), Barry Crocker (actor and singer), Baron Lamington (Governor of Queensland ), Ned Kelly (bushranger), Dame Nellie Melba (singer), Dorothy Dix (journalist), Sylvanus Bowser (inventor), Maria ‘Granny’ Smith (gardener), Reginald Grundy (television producer), and Harold Holt (Prime Minister) to name a few.
One of the more recent names we can add to this list is former Australian Olympian Steven Bradbury.In Australian English ‘to do a Bradbury’ is to become the unlikely winner of a contest or to accidentally achieve success…
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