from MDMD Dinn's notes on Ch. 41

[Doug Millison]

from:
http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=9712&msg=22311&sort=date


410.12 `Zab' aka `Zabby' (410.14), Wade's Wife Elizabeth (410.20)

410.13 `you . . . regard your Husband, as some sort of Sprout' cf MDMD(?)
`Sprout Penn'. For sprout Sh OED lists A scion, a descendant; colloq, a
young person, a child, now chiefly US & Sc E17.

410.16 `Lepton Castle' Two entries for lepton in the Sh OED. First, lepton
plural -ta/tons, E18, Gk neut of leptos=small, An ancient Greek coin, of
small value, a mite; in modern Greece, a monetary unit equal to one
hundredth of a drachma. Second, lepton, M20, fr Gk leptos = small + on,
Particle Physics, Any of a class of subatomic particles (including
electrons, muons, and neutrinos) which do not take part in strong
interaction, cf hadron (which are particles which do take part in strong
interaction). Lepton it appears is a real English Lord, a Hell-fire
(418.35), i.e. rake, who lost all his money gambling on a Stock Market
Bubble and resorted to the iron trade in America to rebuild his wealth
and his name (416.19). The only candidate to locate his original ancestral
home (if his birthright ran to such) is Lepton in Yorkshire, just outside
of (and West of) Huddersfield. No idea where the US castle is located more
specifically than is defined than by some references to Susquehannah and
Chesapeake. Lady L appears to have been picked up as business took off in
the US, from Durham (417.2).

411.2 `Tallow Dips' In full dip candle, A candle made by repeatedly
dipping a wick in tallow. Titter titter. I hope the Revd isn't listening.

411.6 `Bloomeries' bloom, fr OE bloma, A mass of iron, steel, or other
rolled metal, rolled or hammered into a thick bar for further working.
Also loosely, an unworked mass of puddled iron. bloomery, -ary, L16,
a forge or mill where blooms (esp of wrought iron) are rolled or hammered.

411.9 `under the protection of a superior Power,-- not in this case God,
but rather, Business' Sounds like one of Don D's quiet Americans.

411.11 `the Invisible Hand' Adam Smith's notion that raional agents guided
by their own self-interest would act in such a way as to promote the public
interest, the foundation of laissez-faire economics which caused most of
the misery associated with the Industrial Revolution. Might be able to
argue a case for transplanting this whole scene into the 1960s when the
free market eggheads began fighting back (not to mention that it is being
recounted in the 80s as the story of free marketeer/enrepreneur Wade). A
warning, maybe, of what the information revolution is going to do to us
all (well almost all of us?)


411.17 `the well-guarded, and in the estimate of some, iniquitous
Iron- Plantation of Lord and Lady Lepton.' This isn't some sort of
code for a nuclear processing/weapons plant, no? What with Wade the
arms merchant coming knocking, and that Lepton/lepton pun? And,
certainly, in terms of the military technology available at the time
Lord L looks like he could have kept a contemporary Saddam Hussein
happy. Or is the iniquity in, say, his use of slave labour?

412.8 `Gangue' E19, Fr fr G gang = way, course, vein or lode of metal, The
valueless or unwanted components of an ore deposit.

412.19 `wordlessly and, as some may believe, patiently, they bide
everywhere, these undeclared secular terms in the Equations of Proprietary
Happiness. A beautifully dry metaphor to capture such a bitter subject. And
I get the impression that Wicks (or rather Pynchon) is not just describing
Pennsylvania/Maryland in the C18th.


412.29 `silver sconce and Sperm Taper Light' sperm taper is a candle made
from spermaceti or sperm oil. sconce, LME, aphetic fr Fr esconse = hiding
place or lantern, or fr med Lat sconsa aphetic fr absconsa (laterna) =
dark (lantern), 1 a) A lantern or candlestick with a screen to protect the
light from the wind, and a handle for carrying, LMW-M18, b) a flat
candlestick with a handle, M19, 2 A bracket for a candle or a light hung
on or fixed to an interior wall, rare M19.

412.31 `The Plafond' M17, Fr from plat = flat + fond = bottom, Archit An
ornately decorated ceiling, either flat or vaulted; painting or decoration
on a ceiling, M17.


413.30 `What, in London, is termed an "Hurricanoe"' Sh OED lists hurricano
(along with furicano and furacan) as an obs variation on hurricane for
which one listed sense is, A large crowded assembly of fashionable people
at a private house, M18-E19.

413.38 `Scriblerian' M20, fr Martinus Scriblerus, a character invented by
the Scriblerus Club formed c1713 by Pope, Swift, Arbuthnot, and others,
who published The Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus in 1741 in order to
ridicule lack of taste in learning.


414.14 `My Wig [. . .] it doesn't feel quite . . . symmetric' What is
going on here, as well? Why the mention of symmetry? Is there a
particle physics pun here?

415.11 `you were the muddy boy at the side of the ditch with his hand
upon his Willie' Unlikely that Lady L would use E20 slang but as modern-day
(English) English put-down this would be le mot juste.

415.16 `They told me you were wild, poor, a Dissenter, an Outlaw' Whose
version of events are we hearing here filtered through our narrator's
recall.

415.27 `the music they are playing [. . .] tho' at te moment little more
than a suite of airs of the Street and Day' i.e. based on current popular
song,-- is this meant to be jazz, whence that `modality' in the following
line?

415.29 `unashamed prevalence of British modality,-- that is,
Phrygioid, if not Phrygian' Phrygian mode, Mus a) an ancient Greek mode,
reputedly war-like in character; b) a church mode with E as the final and
C as the dominant (the final being the principal note in the mode and the
dominant - normally the fifth note in a diatonic scale - being, in the
case of a church mode, the reciting note, usu a fifth or a third above
the final). In this case C is a sixth above E.

416.12 `the pierc'd paint eyes of Neilles and Vanes' presumably like some
Hammer House of Horror movie there is a tunnel passing behind the
portraits in the gallery. For Vanes cf MDMD(?) follow-up. What about the
Nevilles?

416.17 `Belleza, che chiama . . .' Translations and souce?

416.22 `one of the period's more extravagant Stock-Bubbles' Sh OED has 1
fig An unsubstantial or visionary (esp commercial or financial) project,
enterprise, etc, L16, 2 A person who is cheated or duped, M17-E19, 3
attrib or as an adj Of a project, enterprise, etc: unsubstantial, delusive,
fraudulent, now arch or Hist M17. Also, South Sea Bubble (scheme) Hist a
stockjobbing scheme for trading in the southern hemisphere to repay the
British National Debt, which started and collapsed in 1720. The OED does
not mention that much of that trade was to have been in slaves.

417.7 `Mignonette' E18, Fr dim of mignon = dainty or `petite'. A kind
of light fine pillow-lace, also mignonette-lace. E18.



418.29 `the Staithes' a very old word, going back almost unchanged in
form from OE to ON, 1 A bank, a shore, arch OE-ME, 2 A landing-stage,
a wharf; esp a waterside coal depot equipped for loading vessels, ME,
3 An embankment, LME. Also exists as a M19 verb meaning to embank.

419.6 `It is difficult in these days of closer-fitting Attire, to
imagine the enormous volumes of unoccupied Space that once lay between
is Skirt's outer Envelope and the woman's body far within.' Is this
another case where inside and outside have wildly different metric
properties. And what about `these days' Were skirts so much tighter in
the 1780s than in the 1760s. If not then who is speaking and when?


from:
http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=9712&msg=22312&sort=date



420.3 `an Otick Catarrh' otic, M17, fr Gk otikos, Anat & Med, Of or
pertaining to the ear, auricular.


421.8 `Children playing in miniature at Men of Enterprise' Sh OED has
three relevant definitions. enterprise, The action of overseeing or
managing, M16-E19, 2 The action of engaging in enterprises; esp
activity undertaken with an economic or commercial end in view, M18.
enterpriser, A person who enagges in an enterpriser; now esp an
entrepreneur, E16. Interesting that entrepreneurs became singled out
as a breed in the language in the time of the first global
expeditions, and the way it came to acquire economic and commercial
overtones says something about how those original expeditions were
conceived and considered.