from a blogger, 10 years old now, Happy New Read.

[Mark Kohut]

How's this for a coincidence:

I was stopped at a stoplight across from an Indian restaurant called
"Nawab," and I was listening to Thomas Pynchon's " Mason & Dixon" as an
audiobook. While I sat there, this is what was read:

"The Company promis'd travel, adventure, dusky Maidens, and one Day,
Nawabheit.... A silken Curtain opening upon Life itself! Who would not have
been persuaded?"

I thought, whoa, what are the odds of that? "Nawabheit" seems to be a word
that Pynchon constructed himself. There's a very good Pynchon / Mason &
Dixon website,

http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=N

and it offers this definition:

Nawabheit

p. 161; "Nawab" is an alternate spelling of "Nabob" (a man of great
wealth); "heit" is a German suffix meaning quality of or a state of (-ness)

And here's a definition of "nabob":

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition.
2000.

nabob

SYLLABICATION: na·bob
PRONUNCIATION: nbb
NOUN: 1. A governor in India under the Mogul Empire. Also called nawab. 2.
A person of wealth and prominence.
ETYMOLOGY: Hindi nawb, nabb, from Arabic nuwwb, pl. of n'ib, deputy, active
participle
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