Don't ever use the word "eponymous"

Especially if you don't use it properly.  Here we have Slate contributer Tim Cavanaugh:

The heavily promoted The Walking Dead, an adaptation of Robert Kirkman's eponymous comic book, opens on Halloween in AMC's Sunday 10 p.m. Emmy-bait position.

If the comic book were trully eponymous, it would be called Robert Kirkman.  Why not rewrite the sentence as "The heavily promoted The Walking Dead, an adaptation of Robert Kirkman's comic book of the same name, opens on Halloween in AMC's Sunday 10 p.m. Emmy-bait position.

It's more words, sure, but that's certainly preferable to misusing a word and looking like a boob.   

In September, Philip Corbett, the associate managing editor for standards at The New York Times, devoted the beginning of his weekly memo to the overuse and misuse of "eponymous" by his fellow Times writers.

It’s not a word that pops up much in ordinary conversation, or even in most writing. But journalists love it, lured perhaps by its sheen of erudition. We’ve used it 64 times in the past year, sometimes twice in one day. That seems a lot for a word most people never utter in their whole lives.

I would also add that the lure of concision is also part of the attraction.  Unfortunately, it is a Siren's call.