Help, please

Tue Nov 11 11:52:26 CST 2008

Pynchon is Shakespearean.............


--- On Tue, 11/11/08, David Payne <dpayne1912 at hotmail.com> wrote:

> From: David Payne <dpayne1912 at hotmail.com>
> Subject: RE: Help, please
> To: "Pynchon-l" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Date: Tuesday, November 11, 2008, 10:56 AM
> The word "cam" is much older than the car, and I
> am impressed, Michael, with the way that you have seemingly
> magically dug (dialed?) your way back to some of the older
> meanings of the word.
>  
> Forgive this long posting, but here are the definitions I
> found on OED online.
>  
> But wait -- before the long posting from OED -- could
> "furrow" also refer to a furrowed brow, so that
> closed eyes are set safely behind a furrowed brow, i.e.,
> switching the view point to the mind's eye?
>  
> From the OED, cam:
>  
> cam, n. 1:
> 
> [cf. Du. kam (MDu. cam), Ger. kamm, Da. and Sw. kam, the
> same word as Eng. COMB, but also applied to a ‘toothed rim
> or part of a wheel, teeth of a wheel’, as in Du. kamrad,
> Ger. kammrad, Da. and Sw. kamhjul ‘toothed wheel,
> cog-wheel’; thence also mod.F. came ‘cog, tooth, catch
> of a wheel, sort of tooth applied to the axle of a machine,
> or cut in the axle, to serve to raise a pestle or
> forge-hammer’. Taken into English prob. either from Du. or
> Fr. 
> 
>   The primary meaning of Teut. kambo- was ‘toothed
> instrument’; cf. its cognates Gr. - tooth, peg, Skr.
> jambha- tusk, OSlav. z b tooth: see COMB.]  
> 
>     a. A projecting part of a wheel or other revolving
> piece of machinery, adapted to impart an alternating or
> variable motion of any kind to another piece pressing
> against it, by sliding or rolling contact. Much used in
> machines in which a uniform revolving motion is employed to
> actuate any kind of non-uniform, alternating, elliptical, or
> rectilineal movement. The original method was by cogs or
> teeth fixed or cut at certain points in the circumference or
> disc of a wheel, but the name has been extended to any kind
> of eccentric, heart-shaped, or spiral disc, or other
> appliance that serves a similar purpose. 
> 1777 Specif. W. Vicker's Patent No. 1168 The wheel F
> turning a cylinder with a cam and two crankes. 1805 Specif.
> J. Hartop's Patent No. 2888 Upon any axis A..apply a
> pin, cam, crank or curve or curves C. 1831 G. PORTER Silk
> Manuf. 269 Camms, or wheels of eccentric form. 1832 BABBAGE
> Econ. Manuf. vi. (ed. 3) 44 If one or more projecting
> pieces, called cams, are fixed on the axis opposite to the
> end of each lever. 1858 GREENER Gunnery 418. 1867 Athenæum
> No. 2084. 440/3 An iron camb for power-looms. 1879
> Cassell's Techn. Educ. I. 407/2 Cams are
> variously-formed plates, or grooves, by means of which a
> circular may be converted into a reciprocating motion.
> 
>     b. Comb., as cam-ball valve, cam-groove, cam-gear
> wheel, cam-shaft, cam-wheel. cam-box, a frame surrounding a
> cam and designed to compel the rod which the cam drives to
> follow the return motion of the projecting lobe; also, a
> casing enclosing the cam and its rollers in order that
> copious lubrication may be secured by having the cams
> revolve in a bath of oil (Cent. Dict. Suppl. 1909);
> cam-cutter, a machine-tool specially adapted for cutting and
> finishing cams; cam-pump, a pump in which the valve motion
> is given by a cam; cam-shaft, a shaft bearing a cam or cams;
> also attrib.; cam-yoke, a frame attached to a valve-stem or
> other reciprocating piece to which it gives intermittent
> straight-line motion from a cam on the face of a rotating
> disc; used in steam-engine valve-gears (Funk's Standard
> Dict. 1893). 
> a1884 KNIGHT Dict. Mech. Suppl. 156 Cam Cutter. 1922 JACOBS
> Cam Design 74 The hand-made master cam is now placed in
> position on the cam cutter head spindle. 
>  
> 1879 Cassell's Techn. Educ. IV. 393/1 A cam-groove cut
> in the reverse side of the crank-plate. 
>  
> a1884 KNIGHT Dict. Mech. Suppl. 157 Drayton Cam Pump. 
>  
> a1877 Dict. Mech. I. 435/2 Cam-shaft, a shaft having cams
> or wipers, for raising the pestles of stamping-mills. 1908
> Westm. Gaz. 9 Jan. 4/1 Depressing the cam-shaft pedal. 1955
> Times 20 Aug. 4/3 The new B.R.M. has a 2 -litre short stroke
> 4-cylinder engine with overhead cam-shafts. 
>  
> 1874 KNIGHT Dict. Mech. 435/2 The duty of the cam-wheel is
> to give an intermittent reciprocating motion to the bar. 
> 
> __
> 
> cam, n. 2
> 
> north. dial. 
> 
>  [= Sc. kame, kaim, a. ON. kamb-r (Da. and Sw. kam) COMB,
> crest, serrated ridge, crest or ridge of a hill, etc. The
> same word originally as COMB, and CAM n.1, but the three
> come through distinct channels, and there is no
> consciousness of their identity.]  
> 
>     A ridge; a long narrow earthen mound; the bank on which
> a hedge is planted or the like. 
> 1788 MARSHALL E. Yorksh. Gloss. (E.D.S.), Cam, any long
> mound of made earth. 1855 Whitby Gloss., Cam, a mound of
> earth, a bank boundary to a field. 1861 RAMSAY Remin. Ser.
> II. Introd. 26 (Yorksh. dial.) Cum doun t' cam'
> soid. 1876 Mid. Yorksh. Gloss., Cam, a rise of hedge-ground;
> generally cam-side.
> 
> __
> 
> cam, n. 3
> 
> dial. 
> 
> [f. CAM a. or v.]  
> 
>     Contradiction, crossing in purpose. 
> 1875 Lanc. Gloss. (E.D.S.), When he meets wi cam,
> there's no good to be done.
> 
> __
>  
> CAM, n. 4
> 
> [f. the initials of Catapult Aircraft Merchant-ship.]  
> 
>     A merchant-ship equipped with a fighter plane launched
> by catapult. 
> 1943 Cosmopolitan Aug. 14/1 Every eye was turned
> instinctively to the C.A.M., the convoy's Catapult
> Aircraft Merchantship, the defiant reply of the Royal Air
> Force to Nazi air assault on British merchant shipping. 1944
> A. M. TAYLOR Lang. World War II 18 CAM: Catapult Aircraft
> Merchantship. Adopted by the RAF, to accompany and afford
> protection to convoys. 1945 L. R. GRIBBLE Battle Stories RAF
> vii. 18 Volunteered to fly with convoys as a catafighter on
> a Cam-ship. 1954 P. K. KEMP Fleet Air Arm 152 These catapult
> ships were known as Camships. 1956 ‘TAFFRAIL’ Arctic
> Convoy xix. 201 A ‘C.A.M.’ ship..an ordinary
> cargo-carrier fitted with a catapult forward with a single
> Hurricane fighter.
>  
> __
>  
> cam, a. and adv.
> 
> Obs. exc. dial. 
> 
> [Adopted from Celtic: in Welsh cam crooked, bent, bowed,
> awry, wrong, false; Gael. cam crooked, bent, blind of one
> eye; Manx cam (as in Gaelic); Ir. cam: OIr. camm crooked,
> repr. an OCeltic *cambo-s, as in the proper name Cambodunum
> ‘crooked town’. In English probably from Welsh, and no
> doubt in oral use long before the 16th c. when first found
> in literature; the derived form cammed is in the
> Promptorium.]  
> 
>     A. adj. Crooked, twisted, bent from the straight. Hence
> mod. dial. Perverse, obstinate, ‘cross’. 
> 
> a1600 HOOKER Serm. iii. Wks. II. 698 His mind is perverse,
> kam [ed. 1676 cam], and crooked. 1642 Sc. Pasquils (1868)
> 117 Cam is thy name, Cam are thyne eyies and wayes..Cam are
> thy lookes, thyne eyies thy ways bewrayes. 1853 AKERMAN
> Wiltsh. Tales 138 As cam and as obstinate as a mule. 1862
> HUGHES in Macm. Mag. V. 236/2 As cam as a peg.
> 
>     B. adv. Away from the straight line, awry, askew (also
> fig.). clean cam (kam), ‘crooked, athwart, awry, cross
> from the purpose’ (J.); cf. KIM KAM. 
> 1579 TOMSON Calvin's Serm. Tim. 909/1 We speake in good
> earnest, and meane not..to say, walk on, behaue your selues
> manfully: and go cleane kam our selues like Creuises. 1607
> SHAKES. Cor. III. i. 304, Sicin. This is cleane kamme. Brut.
> Meerely awry. 1611 COTGR. s.v. Contrefoil, The wrong way,
> cleane contrarie, quite kamme. 1708 MOTTEUX Rabelais V.
> xxvii, Here they go quite kam, and act clean contrary to
> others. 1755 JOHNSON, Kam, crooked.
> 
> __
>  
> cam, v.
> 
> dial. 
> 
> [f. CAM a.]  
> 
>     trans. and intr. (See quots.) 
> c1746 J. COLLIER (Tim Bobbin) Tummus & M. Wks. (1862)
> 53 So ot teh [so that they] camm'd little or none; boh
> agreed t' pey aw meeon [to pay all between them].
> 1847-78 HALLIWELL s.v., A person who treads down the shoe
> heel is said to cam. North. 1875 Lanc. Gloss. (E.D.S.)
> Colloq. use. He cams his shoon at th' heel. Ibid., Cam,
> to cross or contradict; to oppose vexatiously; to quarrel.
> I'll cam him, an' get up his temper.
> 
> > On Tue, 11 Nov 2008 (09:57:46 -0500),
> michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com wrote:
> 
> > a word on "cammed": I was working on a car
> with a buddy back in the
> > day and the instructions for replacing the points
> talked about a cam [...]
> 
> > The oval raised places on the camshaft are actually
> the cams (it's a
> > shaft full of cams) and as they rotate, they push the
> pushrods up.
> > 
> > As the shaft rotates further the (concentric)
> ovoid's irregular shape
> > first pushes the bottom of the pushrod and then
> doesn't - so the
> > pushrod is allowed to retract (pushed down by the
> springs atop the
> > rod) -- so the concept of "cam" is a raised
> surface on a rotating rod.
> > 
> > So in the distributor that we were working on, there
> was a similar
> > raised place on a shaft with a similar purpose: to
> convert rotary into
> > reciprocating motion and to slave this motion to the
> rate of rotation.
> > 
> > Now if the old dude is rising every night, in rhythm
> to the rotary
> > motion of the earth, there is some cam-type thing or
> concept that
> > pushes him up out of the furrow.
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