AtD excerpt - "got-damn pinkinroller"

[Paul Nightingale]

Doug and Slim Pickens:

Yes, the sound of it all is important. The narrative voice aligns the text
with Willis and Jimmy's 'common speak', rendered phonetically, is offered as
an alternative narration at the end of the scene-setting paragraph onwards.
Probably the first thing I noticed when reading the extract was the way
Jimmy's exclamation of pain ("Oh, pshaw!") had been censored ("or words to
that effect"). Jimmy-speak is offered as a textual intrusion, just as Willis
is seen by the gang as a territorial intruder. Throughout, Willis doesn't
have much to say for himself, so there is conflict between literary and oral
cultures, just as there is (or will be, one speculates) conflict between
'proper doctoring' and osteopathy (and the joke is that Willis introduces
himself, not as a doctor, which would be understood, and might even confer
authority/respect, but as an osteopath, which would, if understood, likely
provoke hostility/ridicule).

Paul and pinkinroller:

We can argue on and on about what it means, of course. In and of itself, out
of context, your version is plausible, probably more so than mine (too much
work there, perhaps); but I still think the word refers, not to an object in
the hand, but to Willis himself. 'This is none of your business' makes more
sense than 'This is none of object X's business'. I can't find anything
remotely like it in the OED, and we have each based our guesswork on
'pinking' + 'roller'. Pynchon's joke at our expense, then, if it's a word he
has made up (underscoring the point above re oral cultures, that words don't
really 'exist' until sanctioned by the authority of something like the OED).