what's in a word?

[Thomas Vieth]

It seems to me that this is another example of TRP's evident indulgence in 
inventing words as we have seen so many times before.
Thomas

----Original Message Follows----
Date:	Mon, 12 May 1997 10:19:55 -0500 (EST)
From:	TERRY CAESAR <CAESAR at MAIL.CLARION.EDU>
Subject: what's in a word?
To:	pynchon-l at waste.org



     As I try to shove the rest of my life away and keep only the pages of
M&D in front of me, the biggest questions about the book keep sinking into
the smallest ones. For example, words. Take one at the bottom of p. 308:
"caffeous." IS there such a word? WAS there? My OED gives "caffiaceous,"
once, long ago. Or is this a significant question, part of Pynchon's evident
pleasure in composing an eighteen-century style being to confound the differ-
ence between antique usages and wholly original ones?

                 Onward to p. 309 & Beyond,
                      Terry




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