MDMD2: The Learned English Dog

[Dave Monroe]

On 12/14/07, David Payne <dpayne1912 at hotmail.com> wrote:

> There's also the pun, later in M&D (ch. 39, p. 396):
>
> Dixon beams and waves at them. "Are all Virginian Ladies as merrily
> dispos'd?"
>
> "Ev'rywhere but at Norfolk, where talk of Passion far outweighs its
> Enactment,--indeed, the Sailors' Paronomasia for that wretched Place, is
> 'No-Fuck.' "

Damn.  I've been neglecting that one all these years.  But Pynchon'd know:

> > "In 1956, in Norfolk, Virginia, I had wandered into a bookstore and
> > discovered issue one of the Evergreen Review, then an early forum for
> > Beat sensibility. It was an eye-opener...." (SL, "Intro," p. 8)
> >
> > http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0211&msg=72460

Though I honestly believe this is relevant as well:

>From William Empson, The Structure of Complex Words (Norfolk [!], CN: New
>Directions, 1951), Ch. 7, "The English Dog," pp. 158-74 ...
>
> http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0109&msg=60297