Not P but Moby-Dick (31)

[Ian Livingston]

Yes. I used "slack jawed" to indicate "open mouthed" in such a manner that
the lips are parted with lips and jaw relaxed, such as one uses when
breathing through the mouth and nose together, for instance, though not as
in panting, where the lips and jaw are flexed, nor in yawning, when the jaw
is stretched open and the lips are parted wide. You might consider it a
matter of degree in regard to the positioning of the jaw and muscular
involvement of the lips.

On Tue, Oct 24, 2023 at 2:24 AM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Out of the five existing translations I have at hand, three interpreted
> "gaped" as "open-mouthed", which makes "open-mouthed at times" redundant,
> while the other two interpreted it as "yawning", which doesn't seem right
> either. As a matter of fact, even the word "yawning" that follows doesn't
> seem to mean literally yawning, but only indicates his laid-back attitude.
> Is that correct?
>
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 24, 2023 at 12:39 AM Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> To gape is to stare, slack jawed, as if unimpressed by the field of
>> view—or speechlessly overwhelmed by it. One might gape with boredom or
>> wonder. The context is pretty clear in this case.
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> > On Oct 23, 2023, at 8:03 PM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > From Chapter 48:
>> >
>> > Besides he all the time looked so easy and indolent himself, so
>> loungingly
>> > managed his steering-oar, and so broadly gaped—open-mouthed at
>> times—that
>> > the mere sight of such a yawning commander, by sheer force of contrast,
>> > acted like a charm upon the crew.
>> >
>> > What's the difference between "gaped" and "open-mouthed" here?
>> > --
>> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>
>