MD3PAD 61-63

[Heikki Raudaskoski]

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?
>