MD3PAD 61-63

[David Casseres]

>From your quotation, it seems to be "kitchen" rather than "pantry." 
But regardless, it shoots down my reckless guesswork. Nicely done,
Heikki.


On 1/26/06, Heikki Raudaskoski <hraudask at sun3.oulu.fi> wrote:
>
>
> Yes, 'dispens' means 'pantry' in 18th cent South African Dutch -
> found this classification of household rooms:
>
> "In the eighteenth century it was customary for rooms to be named
> according to their position relative to the front entrance. So the
> first room behind the front door was usually named the voorhuis,
> then came rooms to left or right, sometimes called front rooms
> (voorkamers). There were rooms behind (agterkamers) and rooms to
> the side (zijkamers). There could be an internal room (binnekamer),
> or upper rooms (bokamers). Sometimes there was a large living room
> (grote kamer) and small rooms (kamertjes, klijne kamers). The only
> functional names were service rooms such as kitchen, pantry (dispens
> or bottelarij) and cellar."
>
> http://www.museums.org.za/vassa/extract2.html
>
>
> Heikki
>
>
> On Thu, 26 Jan 2006 jbor at bigpond.com wrote:
>
> > The Vrooms are Dutch, and that's what *they* call it.
> >
> > best
> >
> > On 25/01/2006:
> >
> > > Sure, foreign language italics.  But dispens is not, to my knowlege,
> > > slang in any language to mean dispensory.  But it's not far off.   But
> > > WHY (not necesarily a deep quest) is my question.
> > >
> > >> Dutch? Afrikaans?
> > >>
> > >>> Makes sense to me, but one wonders why Pynchon uses this word, in
> > >>> italics even.
> > >>>
> > >>>> Dispensary? Something like a storeroom or cupboard?
> > >>>>
> > >>>>> Cornelius keeps elephant guns nearby to defend the honor of his
> > >>>>> daughters. He keeps one in  "Dispens" out back? The word Dispens
> > >>>>> is in
> > >>>>> italics. What does it mean - outhouse?
> >
>