STetc Bruno mentioned / Daphne mentioned // ch 37

[Michael Bailey]

So maybe it's time for a revival of the term, with gender-aware modifications?

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My pronouns: they, them, their
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My preferred fruit-based metaphors: tomatoes, grapes, monkberry moon delight

________________________________
From: Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 28, 2026 6:57 AM
To: Michael Bailey <mi256118 at ucf.edu>
Cc: Pynchon List <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Subject: Re: STetc Bruno mentioned / Daphne mentioned // ch 37

1. The Seed: Early 1900s

While "tomato" was used sporadically in the late 1800s to describe anything attractive or desirable, it didn't firmly root itself as a descriptor for women until the 1920s.

During the Flapper Era, slang was exploding. Men needed a word that conveyed freshness, vibrancy, and "juiciness." The tomato—red, ripe, and visually appealing—fit the bill. Unlike "lemon" (which meant a disappointment or a dud), a "tomato" was the prize.

2. Full Bloom: The 1930s and 40s

This was the "golden age" of the tomato. It became a staple of Noir films, pulp fiction, and hardboiled detective novels.

  *   The Vibe: It wasn't just about being pretty; it often implied a certain toughness or "street-smart" quality. A detective might walk into a diner and see a "real choice tomato" behind the counter.

  *   Pop Culture: You’ll hear it peppered throughout films starring James Cagney or Humphrey Bogart. It sat comfortably alongside other food-based or object-based slang like "dish," "doll," and "broad."

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3. The Wilt: The 1950s

By the post-war era, "tomato" started to lose its juice. Slang moves fast, and what sounded "tough" in 1935 sounded like "grandpa talk" by 1955.

  *   Overuse: The word became a caricature of itself. It moved from genuine slang to a trope used by writers who were trying too hard to sound "urban."

  *   The Competition: Newer, more aggressive or "hip" terms began to take over. The cool crowd was moving toward "chick" or "babe," leaving "tomato" in the bargain bin of linguistic history.

4. The Fall: 1960s to Present

By the time the counter-culture movement of the 1960s arrived, "tomato" was effectively dead.

  *   The Gender Shift: As the feminist movement gained momentum, objectifying women by comparing them to produce became increasingly cringe-inducing.

  *   The "Old Man" Factor: If you used the word "tomato" in 1970, you were likely a middle-aged man in a fedora who hadn't updated his vocabulary since the Truman administration.

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Why did it die?

Language usually evolves toward efficiency or higher shock value. "Tomato" is a soft, three-syllable word that feels almost quaint today. It lacks the punch of modern slang and carries a "Brooklyn shipyard" energy that doesn't translate to the digital age.

Today, if you call someone a tomato, they’re more likely to think you’re commenting on their sunburn than their physical attractiveness.

Fun Fact: There was also a brief period where "hot tomato" referred specifically to a woman with a fiery temper, but even that has been eclipsed by the more modern "spitfire" or, well, much less polite terms.

On Tue, Apr 28, 2026 at 6:52 AM Michael Bailey via Pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org<mailto:pynchon-l at waste.org>> wrote:
They're mentioned a lot!  Good times coming!
https://youtu.be/PbUE6NqBriw?si=nTcEEvDSRN-5f8tZ


A word about links:

Dropbox links apparently now get the full privacy mega-link treatment on the list, so no point in keeping a page o' links anymore.

I guess link-chunks break up the text nicely, and also, knowing that every link will appear as a whole underlined paragraph may restrain one's tendency to post a lot of links (ambivalent about that prospect) --- It's not really that hard to scroll past them, or click on them; online safety is always a good idea.

& that's all I have to say about that.


Nice pic of the interior of the Fiume torpedo factory, and article:

https://www.georgandagathe.org/history--whitehead-torpedo.html


Ch 37, section 1:


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P278: "submarine sailors, if that's what they are" - / online search reveals the US Navy calls them submariners or sailors; slang parlance includes bubbleheads, tube dudes, sundodgers... Austro-Hungarian: U-Boot-Fahrer, or U-Bootsleute...

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But Stuffy and the narrator call him the Skipper (a possible reference to Gilligan's Island?)

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"a few homegrown tomatoes" this is so far the 3rd instance of that slang term, iirc

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Ernst Hauffnitz is smoking a Latakia blend, Syrian tobacco fire-cured for months with herbal and wood smoke


  *
 Hauffnitz very politely apologizes to Hicks for the interference he's about to inflict on Hicks by taking Bruno

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(Must admit, wondering as to why this would impede Hicks, whose ticket is for Daphne?)

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P279: Hauffnitz is extremely forthcoming! "You might consider us an encapsulated volume of pre-Fascist space-time, forever on the move, a patch of Fiume as it once was, immune to time, surviving all these years in the deep refuge of the sea."

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Like von Trapp, Hauffnitz came in for a somewhat redeeming "2nd act" in life (although earlier than in von Trapp's case)
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"Doubts began for the Skipper early in the War, when Max Valentiner torpedoed and sank SS Persia in the Mediterranean, killing 343 civilians in direct violation of Chancellery orders to spare passengers and rescue survivors."

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Survivor testimony https://sites.google.com/site/thesinkingofthesspersia/testimony






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