Dr. Hilarious and P's language in motion. And neologisms in Bleeding Edge, sorta, in diminuendo.

[Mark Kohut]

Dear Pynchon Listers,

I just listened to Arlo Guthrie's* Alice's Restaurant* or, to be exact,*
Alice's Restaurant Masacree* for the first time in a long time.

Did I know the meaning of "shrink" as a noun when ARM was released in 1967
and which is repeated three or four times when describing the psychiatric
evaluation Arlo goes thru in the second half of the song? I think I did. Or
did
context from 'headshrinker' give it to me as the word did evolve in
publicly measurable ways from the 50s to *Rebel Without a Cause's *(now
funny) use of "headshrinker" by a rebel? (I recently watched that strained,
mannered movie
but sat upright when I heard that word). Anyway a huge popular song made
the word heard every day, all day, for a time in 1967 only one year after
its first OED citation.

Or did I learn "shrink" in the song? Dunno. But I do know that the
linguists know that almost all new words are verbalized in conversation,
and in public, before they are written down in books but it
does surprise me that the first print citation for "shrink" is still
Pynchon describing Dr. Hilarious in *The Crying of Lot 49* published in
1966. But one linguist said ten years is a normal length of time
as someone or others with antennae in the culture knows it and uses it. (I
might bet there are earlier book citations which the OED has not yet gotten
since they might have had a writer like the young Pynchon
on their writers to follow watchlists)

I hope they've picked up a couple from *Bleeding Edge *which if not
self-created are as good as newly known.

Happy American Thanksgiving to All.

Hi Jochen, miss you already.