MDDM23: A Certain Well-Known Gentleman-Detective ...

[John Bailey]

I took this as a reference to E.F. Vidocq, often considered the first modern 
detective, though he was born in 1775. 'Nother anachronism?
http://www.vidocq.org/vidocq.html

'detective'
Whilst this dictionary dates the word, as applied to a person, to 1850.
http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=detectives

Heavy Duty? Very funny. Even if you take the meaning of duty to include a 
cop's 'duty'...

>From: Dave Monroe <davidmmonroe at yahoo.com>
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: MDDM23: A Certain Well-Known Gentleman-Detective ...
>Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2002 08:00:52 -0800 (PST)
>
>    "I was visited one day by a certain well-known
>Gentleman-Detective of the Time,-- let us call him
>Herve du T.,--" (M&D, Ch. 37, p. 372)
>
>Main Entry: detective
>Function: noun
>Date: 1850
>: one employed or engaged in detecting lawbreakers or
>in getting information that is not readily or publicly
>accessible
>
>Herve du T. = Heavy Duty?
>
>    "'Of course.  Here is your small Fee,-- you see
>this Pistol?  I will not fire it into your head, eh?'"
>(M&D, Ch. 37, p. 375)
>
>And "Detective" italicized in the text no doubt to
>indicate its still-foreign (to English, in the
>late-eighteenth century) status ...
>
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