MDMD(6): 'Torpedick'

[John Bailey]

Thanks for this info Michel. Most of the meanings of Torpedo you list below 
are employed in M&D, and this kind of highlights the importance attached to 
electricity in the novel. Still pondering that, though...

>From: Michel Ryckx <michel.ryckx at freebel.net>
>To: "pynchon-l at waste.org" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: MDMD(6): 'Torpedick'
>Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001 12:04:27 +0200
>
>"[. . .] any resumption of the vice [ = whistling] comes as a Freedom
>almost Torpedick [. . .] (77.9-10)
>
>Some time ago I asked Cyrus, who mentioned once he is the (undoubtedly
>proud) owner of the OED-CD-ROM, the lemmata of certain words in chapter
>8.  I chose some words of which I thought they could be anachronisms and
>I wondered when and how they were being used for the first time.  He
>sent me back the complete information available, for which I am very
>grateful.  <insert capitals> Thank you, Cyrus. </insert capitals>
>
>None of them turned out to be anachronistic.
>
>The first one was 'Torpedick', which seems te be a shortened and not
>mentioned form of torpedoic.  It turned out a torpedo is the English
>word for what we called as kids the 'electric eel', a fish we thought
>fascinating.  There was a machine in his aquarium in the local zoo in
>here in Antwerp, Belgium,  measuring its 'emissions'.  The machine made
>me a strange noise when the torpedo produced electricity, I remember.
>
>Since I would be exceeding the 10kb-limit largely, I only quote the
>different meanings and some older usings of the word.
>
>torpedo, n. Also 6 -ido. Pl. -oes.
>[a. L. torpedo stiffness, numbness, also the cramp-fish or electric ray,
>f. torpere to be stiff or numb; = Sp., Pg. torpedo, It. torpedine. Cf.
>F. torpille, It. torpiglia from the same verb.]
>
>1.
>a. A flat fish of the genus Torpedo or family Torpedinid?, having an
>almost circular body with tapering tail, and characterized by the
>faculty of emitting electric discharges; the electric ray; also called
>cramp-fish, cramp-ray, numb-fish.
>
>1772 Chron. in Ann. Reg. Nov. 136/1 Mr. Walsh touched the back of the
>torpedo; when all the five persons felt a shock at the same instant,
>which differed in nothing from the Leyden experiment.
>
>b.
>fig. One who or that which has a benumbing influence.
>1762 Goldsm. Nash 34 He used to call a pen his torpedo whenever he
>grasped it, it numbed all his faculties.
>
>2.
>a.
>orig. A case charged with gunpowder designed to explode under water
>after a given interval so as to destroy any vessel in its immediate
>vicinity; later also, a self-propelled submarine missile, usually
>cigar-shaped, carrying an explosive which is fired by impact with its
>objective.  The original torpedo was a towed or drifting submarine mine,
>used to defend channels, harbours, and the like (drifting or moored
>torpedo); it was towed at an angle by means of a spar extending at right
>angles (otter or towing torpedo), or carried on a ram or projecting pole
>(boom-, out-rigger-, spar-torpedo).
>1776 J. Thacher Military Jrnl. (1823) 75 Mr. Bushnell gave to his
>machine the name of American Turtle or Torpedo.
>
>b.
>See aerial torpedo s.v. aerial a. 5. Also without specifying adj
>
>3.
>a.
>Milit. A shell furnished with a percussion or friction device buried in
>the ground, which explodes when the ground is trodden upon; a petard.
>U.S.
>b.
>A toy consisting of fulminating powder and fine gravel wrapped in thin
>paper, which explodes when thrown on a hard surface.
>c.
>A cartridge exploded in an oil-well to cause a renewal or increase of
>the flow. U.S. (In use 1873: see torpedoed s.v. torpedo v.)
>d.
>A detonator placed on a railway line, as a fog-signal, etc. U.S.
>1786 tr. Beckford's Vathek (1883) 127, I will spring mines of serpents
>and torpedos from beneath them, and we shall soon see the stand they
>will make against such an explosion.
>
>4. slang.
>a. U.S. A professional gunman.
>b. A tablet or capsule of a narcotic drug.
>
>5. = torpedo-body. Also, a car with such a body.
>
>6.
>attrib. and Comb.; in sense 1, as torpedo-fish, -ray; esp. fig. in
>allusion to its benumbing power, as torpedo history, narrative, quality,
>touch; torpedo-like adv.; in sense 2, as torpedo armament, bomber,
>coxswain, craft, department, flat (flat C. 10 b), -fuse (Knight Dict.
>Mech. 1877), gunner, -instructor, -launch, plane, room, school, ship,
>-vessel, -works; torpedo-carrying, -launching, -proof, -shaped adjs
>
>Hence
>tor_pedoic a. (nonce-wd.), of a torpedo, like that of a torpedo;
>tor_pedoism (tor_pedism),
>(a) action or quality like that of a torpedo or electric ray;
>(b) the use of the torpedo (sense 2) in warfare;
>tor_pedoist (tor_pedist), one who is employed or skilled in, or
>advocates, the use of torpedoes;
>
>


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