Latest revision as of 17:43, 26 June 2020

Editors: Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel. And please pay attention to formatting and grammar. Preview your changes before saving them. Thanks!

☽ - Lyle, the Guru on the Towel Dispenser

Page 127

yogic full lotus
the cross-legged sitting position

crustacean
the branch of animals with external skeletons, including lobsters, shrimp, and other similar shellfish

Page 128

DEUS PROVIDEBIT
Latin: God will provide. The line appears in the Vulgate (Latin) version of the Bible at Genesis 22:8, where Abraham tell Isaac, whom he intends to sacrifice, that God will provide an animal for the sacrifice.

Shellac
a resin secreted by the female lac bug on trees in the forests of India and Thailand. It is processed and sold as dry flakes and dissolved in alcohol to make liquid shellac, which is used as a brush-on colorant, food glaze and wood finish.

crewed
worked in a gang

boosting
stealing

onnings
awnings

Patty citizen type
slang for a "Patrician" type — respectable citizen, person of means, &c.

Page 129

elemonade
eliminate

map
face

slope
derogatory slang for a person of Asian descent

insentive not to eat no cheese
to discourage the victim from contacting law enforcement

pernt
point

Copley
Copley Square, a neighborhood of Boston

personnel works
(personal works) - personal equipment for injecting drugs

cop
obtain drugs

aile
aisle

Bow&Arrow
a reference to the Bow and Arrow Pub at 1 Bow Street. Closed in 2000 due to a building renovation and the rent being raised.

foran
foreign

Cheap-O Records
a reference to Cheapo Records (no hyphen) in Central Square, Cambridge. It was located at 645 Mass Ave when the book was written, but the building has since been demolished. It now resides at 538 Mass Ave. http://www.cheaporecords.com/

trancemission
transmission

Page 130

dopesick
in withdrawal from opiates such as heroin

old hose
old whores

supperst
supposed

petaled ass
(peddled ass) prostituted himself

roll
rob

legless on shots alone
very drunk to the point of not being able to walk well

wet work
sexual acts in exchange for drugs/money/etc. [Not sure of poster's source for this. Seems like a reasonable interpretation, but "wet work" usually refers to killing, with "wet" referring to blood, which is at least equally plausible in this context.]

pernts
points

stifing
(stiffing) They did not give the Santa any money.

feather snake
feather boa - a feathered scarf

eat cheese
be a rat

Page 131

pissboys
people who administer urine drug tests

glass pipes
for smoking crack

Crown Royal in purple bags
Crown Royal is Canadian whisky that comes in a purple cloth bag

Redi Rok crack
redi-rock crack: a combination of crack 'n heroin that can be smoked. Likely named after Redi-Rock Retaining Walls.

rickytick
as soon as possible; quickly. Often seen following the word 'most' and is commonly heard by US Marines.

p-dope
heavily cut heroin

bunk
poor quality, cut, or fake

Manitol
Mannitol
: a type of sugar alcohol used as a sweetener and medication. As a sweetener it is used in diabetic food as it is poorly absorbed by the intestines. As a medication, it is used to decrease pressure in the eyes, as in glaucoma, and to lower increased intracranial pressure. Medically, it is given by injection.

kwai9
quinine
: a bitter compound that comes from the bark of the cinchona tree. The tree is most commonly found in South America, Central America, the islands of the Caribbean, and parts of the western coast of Africa. Quinine was originally developed as a medicine to fight malaria

bundles
heroin

Page 132

stoal
stole

Page 133

jonesing
have a fixation on; be addicted to.

super statiously
superstitiously

Page 134

Hotshots
poisoned heroin so as to be lethal when injected

booted
injected

thearized
theorized

Page 135

true straight eating cheese

Kicking the Bird
eliminate the heroin habit (going thru withdrawal)

three squars
three squares; i.e. three square meals

methadoan
Methadone - used to help ease off a heroin addiction

☽ November 3rd, YDAU - Orin calls Hal (about Separatism)

Page 135

Page 136

pith helmet
a safari helmet

Phoenician
Orin uses it to mean a native of Phoenix, but the Phoenicians were actually an ancient culture who founded the city of Carthage. True, true, not related. The demonym for persons who live in Phoenix is Phoenicians

Page 137

Advent
the four Sundays preceding Christmas

Ennet House Drug and Alcohol Recovery House

Page 137

Year of the Whopper

Walpole
a suburb of Boston about eighteen miles from the city

Page 138

galoot
a clumsy or oafish person (often as a term of abuse).

mythopoeia
the creating of a myth

feldspar
a group of rock-forming tectosilicate minerals that make up about 41% of the Earth's continental crust by weight.

Yushityu
literally appears to be: "You shit, you"

State Farm E-mail - my def. of a bad day.

Page 138

Year of Dairy Products From the American Heartland

Page 139

blood-alcohol of .3+
If "legally drunk" is now .08 in many states, it's fair to say this guy was hammered

bricklayer
The story of the barrel of bricks is thought to have originated in British music halls of the 1920s, and was printed as a story in a 1937 issue of Readers Digest. The story's most famous iterations are probably the speech given by German-British musician and humourist Gerard Hoffnung at the Oxford Union in 1958 (later released as an LP) and the comic song 'The Sick Note', written by Pat Cooksey in 1969.

900 kg
fifteen pounds short of a ton

75 kg
about 165.3 pounds

Page 140

30 kg
a little over 66 pounds

February 21st, YPWC - Hal's First Film Commentary

Page 140

Year of the Perdue Wonderchicken

21 February
David Foster Wallace was born February 21, 1962.

Page 141

Viz.
Latin abbreviation for videlicet, meaning "that is to say"

Mirandized
read his or her rights, from the Supreme Court case Miranda v. Arizona (1965)

Page 142

probity
integrity

August 10th, YDAU - Helen Steeply's Only Putative Published Article

Page 142

Jarvik IX
undoubtedly named for Robert Koffler Jarvik (born 1946), inventor of the first artificial heart placed in a human being

restenosis
stenosis is an abnormal narrowing of blood vessels; restenosis is a recurrence of stenosis

Page 143

Etienne Aigner
a fashionable leather goods manufacturer

shunt
a shunt is a hole or a small passage which moves, or allows movement of, fluid from one part of the body to another.

Page 144

Brigham and Women's City of Boston Hospital
a real hospital, now affiliated with Harvard Medical School

Tally of Séparatisteur/Anti-O.N.A.N. Groups

Page 144

séparatisteur
Broken French, should be séparatistes.

québecois
Misspelling of québécois.

Les Fils de Montcalm
French: Sons of Montcalm. Probably referring to Louis-Joseph de Montcalm-Gozon, Marquis de Saint-Veran (1712-1759), French general during the French and Indian War who presided over the fall of Québec.

Decline of Videophony

Page 144

homuncular
of or pertaining to a diminutive human being

Page 145

straw boater
a type of hat (a "boater") made of straw

tumescent
swollen

Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment

Freddie-Mac
common name for the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Company

trivalent
in this context, most likely [OED]: of a vaccine: giving immunity to three forms of a disease. Also, [having a chemical valance of three]

countenanced
admit as acceptable or possible.

Page 146

fugue
a state or period of loss of awareness of one's identity, often coupled with flight from one's usual environment, associated with certain forms of hysteria and epilepsy.

vectored
To vector is to direct the position of (an airplane).

arational
the difference between irrational and arational is that irrational is not rational; unfounded or nonsensical while arational is (chiefly|philosophy) not within the domain of what can be understood or analyzed by reason; not rational, outside the competence of the rules of reason.

gumlet
By context, it would seem this word is a synonym for aglet.

Page 147

furtive
shifty or sneaky

Physiognomic Dysphoria
Loosely, it means "feeling badly about how one looks."

Page 148

verisimilitude
the appearance of being true or real.

snafus
plural of "snafu," a military acronym for "situation normal: all fucked up"

Page 149

sumptuous
splendid and expensive-looking.

ostentatious
pretentious or showy

Page 150

verve
enthusiasm or vigor

precipitant
sudden, hasty, or rash

micro-econometrist
An econometrist is an economist who uses statistical methods. A microeconomist is an economist who studies a smaller level of economics, i.e., firms and businesses rather than nations or international business.

Ludditism
Named for Ned Ludd (born Ned Ludlam), the Luddites were 19th century opposers of the Industrial Revolution.

retrograde
moving backward

Page 151

electric zirconium jewelry
Jewelry made of zircon. Electricity can be applied to a zircon to make a lamp.

NoCoat LinguaScrapers
tongue scrapers designed to remove a film coat

and c.
Et cetera or etc. is Latin for "and other things." Here Wallace has translated et and left c untranslated.

panagoraphobia
fear of going outside (agoraphobia) in any place (pan-)

☽ - Urine Testing

Page 151

Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment

agnate
related or akin through males, as in a line of males and a line of females (coeds)

widow's peak
a hairline that dips down to a V-shaped point in front when the hair is pulled back

Page 152

Endnote 52

spectrometer
an optical instrument used to measure properties of light over a specific portion of the electromagnetic spectrum

E.M.I.T. and AbuScreen/RIA
Enzyme Multiplied Immunoassay Technique; Abusecreen is a brand name of drug test, and RIA stands for radioimmunoassay, "a procedure that measures minute amounts of a substance, such as a hormone or drug, by quantitating the binding, or the inhibition of binding, of a radiolabeled substance to an antibody" (American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition).

Page 152 (cont'd)

cc
cubic centimeter, equal to 0.001 liters

wienerman
hot-dog salesman

Page 153

Yarmouth sail
a type of boat sail, seen here

Pepperdine
a university in Malibu, Calif.

derrick
A derrick is "a jib crane having a boom hinged near the base of the mast so as to rotate about the mast, for moving a load toward or away from the mast by raising or lowering the boom" (Random House Unabridged Dictionary).

fiat
a formal authorization or proposition; a decree. (OED)

thoracic
relating to the thorax. (OED)

foot-treadle
a lever worked by foot

f/x
special effects in film

Bolex
a Swiss camera manufacturer

undulating
moving with a wave-like motion

Page 154

petrochemical
a chemical derived from petroleum or natural gas

spronging
sprong is Dutch for "to leap or bound"

Eschatonic
The name of the game is based on the same root as eschatology, i.e., the study of the end of the world.

pünch
There is no such German word.

serpentine
snake-like

Standford-Bïnet
Misspelling of Standford-Binet (intelligence scale).

dilettantish
from "dilettante" - a person who takes up an art, activity, or subject merely for amusement, especially in a desultory or superficial way; dabbler.

Page 155

dento-dermal
by the skin of his teeth

brine
salt water

emulsion
Emulsion is colloidal suspension of one liquid in another.

differentials
first derivatives in calculus

three Canadians copulating on a snowmobile
One Website (x281 Beast From 20,000 Fathoms) seems to give the answer as a "BBQ-ed Polar Bear," which, if correct, makes about as much sense as the question!

More likely ménage à froid (froid means cold).

high-water
pants hemmed too high

erumpent
1. bursting forth. 2. (of fungi or algae) prominent; projecting from or bursting through host tissue.

gratis
free of charge

ex cathedra
Latin for "from the chair" and referring to the doctrine of papal infallibility on matters of faith and morals

éclat
great brilliance or conspicuous success

Page 156

dewy-eyed
exhibiting childlike simplicity

FIENDS IN HUMAN SHAPE
how a Memphis newspaper described Union soldiers during the Civil War

Feenian
possibly "fenian", referring to a breed of horse or to both the Fenian Brotherhood and Irish Republican Brotherhood, two organizations dedicated to the establishment of an independent Irish republic

Brighton
a section of Boston

natal
of or pertaining to a person's birth

Brutus
Marcus Junius Brutus (85-42 BC) was the most famous assassin of Julius Caesar (100-44 BC).

vade mecum
Latin for "go with me," this is a book for quick reference