AtD translation: a-thrum with excitement

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Pynchon uses that construct 8 times in AtD:

a-blush - AD Three 37.3: 506-510  p. 509
a-bustle - AD Two 25.1: 296-304  p. 302 (dice tables - with challenge, insult and imprecation)  
a-jitter - AD Two 27.4: 348-351  p. 350  
a-riot - AD Two 27.5: 351-353  p. 351 (silk brocade - with Oriental scenes)  
a-seethe - AD Three 38.2: 531-540  p. 533  
a-shine - AD Three 32.4: 445-448  p. 446 (brass fittings [...] -)  
a-thrill - AD Two 27.3: 343-347  p. 346  
a-thrum - AD Two 21.5: 255-255  p. 255

Michel

-----Original Message-----
From: Pynchon-l <pynchon-l-bounces at waste.org> On Behalf Of Mark Kohut
Sent: dinsdag 26 maart 2019 18:27
To: Becky Lindroos <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Subject: Re: AtD translation: a-thrum with excitement

Ditto.....

A--and, I just want to add that in the organic history of word Creation in English, many words which evolve to dropping the dash between a and the rest or dropping the a altogether have happened.

Google a Shakespeare Concordance and see a long list of them, including a-bed, a-sleep and others I've already forgotten.
P loves many olde words and roots, etc....

So, a linguistic playing-with homage to word roots as well, maybe.


On Tue, Mar 26, 2019 at 1:18 PM Becky Lindroos <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
wrote:

> Great post,  Douglas!   Thanks.   (And welcome to pynchon-l.)
>
> Becky
>
> > On Mar 26, 2019, at 7:25 AM, Douglas Johnson <dmj at panix.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Mar 26, 2019, at 07:58, Mike Jing wrote:
> >
> >> P255.1-6 Chick greeted his shipmates, who were a-thrum with 
> >> excitement What does "a-thrum" mean?
> >
> > "A-thrum" is Pynchon playing with language. English occasionally 
> > uses
> the prefix "a-" to mean "in such a condition" Some examples are "aflutter,"
> "aflame," and "acrawl."
> >
> > "Athrum" isn't a proper English word (in the sense of being found in 
> > the
> dictionary). Rather, "a-thrum" is the result of Pynchon combining the "a-"
> prefix with "thrum" in an inventive, playful manner. (In US English, 
> it's not uncommon to hyphenate such a temporary compound rather than 
> close it
> up.)
> >
> > In this case, "a-thrum" means (essentially) "thrumming." I'm curious 
> > how
> a translator would capture the wordplay here.
> >
> > --
> > Douglas Johnson
> > dmj at panix.com
> > OpenPGP fingerprint: 3E0E 6D19 80BE A504 1C02  8E19 DB21 0C1A 8CB7 
> > 8135
> > --
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