AtDtDA(34): "So You're Fixin' to be a Nun"

[Dave Monroe]

"'So you're fixin' to be a nun.'" (AtD, Pt. IV, p. 958)


"tiresome gender questions"

http://www.theory.org.uk/ctr-butl.htm
http://www.colorado.edu/English/courses/ENGL2012Klages/butler.html
http://www.cla.purdue.edu/academic/engl/theory/genderandsex/modules/butlergendersex.html


"'body mass'"

Cf. ...

"mass and velocity and cold gravity" (AtD, Pt. IV, p. 837)

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_946-975#Page_958


"'another British vice'"

Cf. ...

vice anglais m

(slang) flagellation
(slang) homosexuality

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Vice_anglaise
http://www.sex-lexis.com/Sex-Dictionary/vice%20anglais

Early 20C term for a masochistic interest in flagellation, said with
some justification to be a peculiarly English perversion. The most
prominent example was Swinburne. Victorian pornography abounds in
scenes of flagellation; and titillating stories in today's tabloid
press, of the naughty vicar variety, frequently include spanking. The
origin is often said to be the rituals of birching and caning which
until recently were characteristic of English *public schools.
Certainly it has been a taste associated mainly with the upper
classes.

http://www.historyworld.net/Articles/PlainTextArticles.asp?aid=zak&pid=891

And see as well, e.g., ...

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0104&msg=54587
http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0612&msg=112844


"Bernadette o' Lourdes"

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09389b.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernadette_Soubirous
http://www.bernadette-of-lourdes.co.uk/bernadette-of-lourdes.htm


Mannlichers

http://www.steyr-mannlicher.at/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steyr_Mannlicher
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannlicher-Sch%C3%B6nauer

... though it's difficult not to hear this as a compound word in
English here ...