AtD translation: worn insolence

[Mark Kohut]

damaged and shabby as a result of much use.
"a worn, frayed denim jacket"
synonyms: shabby, well worn, worn out, worn to shreds, threadbare, tattered, in
tatters, in ribbons, in rags, in holes, holey, falling to pieces, falling
apart at the seams, ragged, frayed, patched, moth-eaten, faded, seedy,
shoddy, sorry, scruffy, dilapidated, crumbling, broken-down, run down,
tumbledown, decrepit, deteriorated, on its last legs, having seen better
days, timeworn

When one learns "timeworn" can be compressed into "worn" and thinks of time
and its passing as so important in this work,
one might be inclined to favor this as first among the equals of 'all the
meanings at once".......

On Tue, Jun 18, 2019 at 3:46 AM Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:

> I believe, Mike, that if you'd put that question to the author himself he
> would say: That's what you are there for, Mr. Translator. Perhaps not
> exactly because words with more than 1 meaning are seldom exactly to
> transfer into another language. He has given you some hints in the passage
> you quote ...
>
> (And we know that everybody expects to live forever, don't we?)
>
> Am Mo., 17. Juni 2019 um 23:06 Uhr schrieb Mike Jing <
> gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>:
>
> > P330.21-28   “Sometimes the real world, the substantial world of affairs,
> > possessing greater inertia, takes a while to catch up,” Kit carefully
> > pretended to instruct him. “The Maxwell Field Equations, for example—it
> was
> > twenty years till Hertz discovered real electromagnetic waves, traveling
> at
> > the speed of light, just as Maxwell had worked it out on paper.”
> >        “Twenty years,” smiled Scarsdale Vibe, with the worn insolence of
> > someone expecting to live forever. “I’m not sure I have that long.”
> >        “All sincerely trust that you do,” replied Kit.
> >
> > What exactly does the word "worn" mean here?
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
> --
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>