I had a professor in college called Dumm, who married another professor named Bright, and of course they saw fit to combine their names. And although Dumm-Bright is not the word you are looking for yet, but I often feel the name should be borrowed by some novelist or other.
Take out the yet or but there. If the Dumm-Brights were compelling enough as characters, the name could do a Widmerpool, or a Svengali.
1. Moral Philosophy?
2. self-righteous seems to come close.
Apparently that phrase is already in (infrequent) use - in a variety of ways. I guess I should have done a search first.
2. self-falsifying self-descriptor
I still say "nymomania" or "nym-omania" pretty much covers it.
As in "While planning the details of their ice-cave wedding, the nymomaniacal couple decided that the irreducible essence of their Natural Spirit Union would best be captured by changing their last name to 'Snowflake, Unique'."
there's this utterly hideous catalogue for linens and stuff called "A Touch of Class". in my family it's known as "A Touch of Ass". they have some eeevil home furnishings in there.
google "heterological" - essentially "non-selfdescribing".
The fun starts when you ask if "heterlogical" is heterological.
Hey wait a minute, who's this Mitch fellow?
Goober, also gobberish.
ash
['No, not really an answer. Neither is prophylactic.']
The usage in my family to describe someone who entirely lacks the named qualities is "Suave and debonair", pronounced "Swave and deboner". (I believe it's from a Bugs Bunny cartoon.) But that's an insult, rather than a self-indictment like 'classy', so not exactly on point.
I think for the second question "poseur" is generally used. for example, if you have to say you are cool then you are not cool. Anyone who says they are cool is a poseur.
The first question is harder for me because I can't quite see narcissism in the practice, but I suppose a sarcastically toned "trendy" would do the trick. For the full salvo you could give them "Oh, how trendy."
The Levenger's catalogue is the objective correlate of 2.
#16: agreed. I was walking through the airport recently and passed one of those "fine pens" stores, and thought, if I ever become the kind of person who buys a "fine pen" in an airport, I hope someone shoots me.
Tripp,
"Poseur" may define situation 2 but I always thought it was an example of situation 2. You never sound particularly authentic calling someone a "poseur". The word has got the smell of clove cigarettes on it.
As someone from the previous generation, I call them (to myself) "unmarried in name only."
Wait a minute...my last post referred to those women who retain their "maiden" names after marriage. For the shared last name invention, could they be Neonominists?
for #2, oxyautomoron?
although admittedly, if "heterological" already exists...
And as for name recombination, I very much approve of the practice - it's very biologically correct, plus it has the benefit of directed mutation - for (real-life) ex. if you are a "Pustell", by finding the right spouse you can blot out the nominal exudate.
Also, a member of the #2 subject superset:
Description for a job opening, among the candidate requirements was "has the respect of his/her peers".
Why is it that there are some things that we know full well but can't say without morphing into dweebs?
my last post referred to those women who retain their "maiden" names after marriage
There was an Isaac Asimov story (GEEK GEEK, I know) that revolved around the idea that the term for this was "Lucy Stoner." Now I think it's so common it doesn't even have a term. I've never heard "Lucy Stoner" in any other context.
Lucy Stone was a 19th C feminist who retained her birth name after marriage. But you're right, no one uses the term anymore.