David Foster Wallace, nonplussed

Several years ago I came to realize that I misunderstood the meaning of the word nonplussed. So I am amused to see David Foster Wallace using the word correctly in his first novel, The Broom of the System (New York: Viking Penguin, 1987). Rick Vigorous (of the publishing firm Frequent and Vigorous) approaches switchboard operator Lenore Stonecipher Beadsman:

I see Lenore looking up to smile at my approach. I see me exhausting the subject of the weather, then asking Lenore if she might perhaps care to have a drink, with me, after work. I see one of the rare occasions I’ve encountered in which the word “nonplussed” might profitably be used in description. I see Lenore momentarily nonplussed.

“I don’t really drink,” she said, after a moment, looking back down at her book.

I felt a sinking. “You don’t drink liquid of any sort?” I asked her.

Lenore looked up softly at me and gave a slow smile. Her moist lips curved up softly. They really did. I resisted the urge to lunge into disaster right there in the lobby. “I drink liquid,” she admitted, after a moment.

“Splendid. What sort of liquid do you prefer to drink?”

“Ginger ale’s an especially good liquid, I’ve always thought,” she said, laughing.

I’m almost a third of the way through the novel and am surprised to see so many elements of Infinite Jest already in place (in a novel written as an undergraduate thesis): non-chronological narrative, sections and subsections identified by year, multiple narrators, exhaustive catalogues, excerpts from other texts, awkward dialogue, long stretches of dialogue without attribution, the use of “‘. . .’” to mark baffled silence, even a reconfigured American landscape (the Great Ohio Desert). I see me finishing this novel in the near future.

June 9: My friend Sara McWhorter reports that nonplussed also appears, correctly used, in Infinite Jest (Boston: Little, Brown, 1996). The word comes up on pages 57 and 692: “the guy was to say the least nonplussed”; “Day was nonplussed when he found himself, after a couple long nights, almost missing Lenz.” Thanks, Sara.

Related reading
All David Foster Wallace posts (via Pinboard)

[Lenore’s fellow switchboard operator is named Judith Prietht.]

"The Education of Dasmine Cathey"

At the University of Memphis, Dasmine Cathey is working on his résumé with “life-skills coordinator” Kristin Rusboldt:

“What's your major?” she asks.

“Sports management.”

“Is that a bachelor of science or arts?” she says.

He doesn’t know, so he walks a few steps away to ask [football counselor] Ms. [Sharyne] Connell.

“Do I have a bachelor of science or arts?” he says.

Ms. Connell comes out of her office and heads toward Ms. Rusboldt. “He has a bachelor of liberal studies in interdisciplinary studies,” she says.

Mr. Cathey sits back down, a staff member by each side. He taps out, “Bachelor of Liberal Studies.”

“Type ‘in Interdisciplinary Studies,’” Ms. Rusboldt says.

“How do you spell that?”

Read it all, including the samples of academic work, and weep:

The Education of Dasmine Cathey (Chronicle of Higher Education)

[I think though that medical not academic issues will doom college football.]

“It’s ordered special for you!”

[Mark Trail, June 4, 2012.]

Mitt Romney and D-list cartoon hero Mark Trail are, it seems, the same person (or character). Here he takes the fight to President Obama in the White House itself. Enough of these special privileges, says Mitt/Mark.

Related posts
Mitt/Mark Romney/Trail
Mitt/Mark and the big trees
Mitt/Mark Romney/Trail, learning from experience

Neologism contest

My friend Stefan Hagemann is seeking a word and is willing to sponsor a contest to find it. I think that’s a great idea. Here is what Stefan is seeking:

I’d like us to invent a word that describes a particular kind of foolish shortcut, the kind that, often in a foreseeable way, fails to save time and may result in irritation or the feeling that one is absurd and a dimwit. The best example might be that of trying to put on or take off pants without removing one’s shoes, but I seem to need this (nonexistent) word almost every day. When I try to add cream to a container of iced coffee by pouring it through the small opening (rather than removing the larger lid), only to spill cream everywhere, I could use that word. When I haul a Shop-Vac up a ladder because I think it will be faster to vacuum the maple seeds out of my gutters, only to clog the vacuum repeatedly so that I finally give up, I could use that word. What should that word be?

The rules for this contest are simple:

1. You must leave your word in a comment on this post. Use your name or a pseudonym (but not an e-mail address).
2. You may enter more than once.
3. Void where prohibited.

Very important: you must have read this post to be eligible to play. You have now read this post. So play!

Stefan will choose the winning word and award a suitable prize. The deadline for all entries: Monday, June 11, 11:59 p.m. Central.

The Carbon Paper Exam

Margalit Fox in the New York Times:

The passing of carbon paper (and, more worrisome, the passing of people to whom the words “carbon paper” are as familiar as air) captures in miniature the sea change sweeping today’s work force. With the retirement of each member of the carbon-paper cohort — my cohort — a certain body of collective knowledge, which for decades has lent the American work product an essential, indefinable, generational something, is eroded a little more.

Thus a test for the use of employers who wish to perpetuate knowledge of such matters: The Carbon Paper Exam. Answers here.

Related reading
All “dowdy world” posts

[I missed only the Hotel Carlton question. How about you?]

War and Peace, Nookd

A Nook user reading War and Peace in translation has found that the non-word Nookd has replaced every instance of the word kindled. Read all about it: Nookd (Ocracoke Island Journal). Ars Technica has a screenshot.

When any seeker of a fast ninety-nine cents can get hold of a public-domain translation and package it as an e-book, this sort of sloppiness threatens to become the norm. You can find the Louise Shanks Maude and Aylmer Maude translation of Leo Tolstoy’s novel for free, with all the kindleds, at Google Books and Project Gutenberg.

Thanks, Seth.

A Big Lots tea find

If you like tea, go to Big Lots once in a while: these stores can be the source of wondrous bargains in good tea. Today, in the International Flavors section of the store, Typhoo tea, eighty bags for $4. Amazon’s lowest price: $9.12.

It’s a good idea with any Big Lots purchase to check the expiration date. Assume nothing.

More adventures in Big Lots
Attention, Big Lots shoppers
Serendipitous searching at Big Lots

[We bought five boxes, good through 2014.]

Coming Monday

Coming Monday: a neologism contest, sponsored by my friend Stefan Hagemann. Sharpen your thinking caps.

Crocodile

[Photograph by Michael Leddy. Click for a larger view.]

I found this baby crocodile (eight-and-a-half-inches long) in some stray debris after a nearby supermarket was torn down. Can someone tell me what this metal piece really is?

*

July 23, 2012: The mystery of this object has been solved, at least to my satisfaction: it is a handle from an electrical disconnect box. Throwing the handle shuts off power (or turns it back on). Seeing this object correctly requires a new perspective.

A bolt runs through the hole at the top.

A padlock’s shackle fits through the crocodile’s eye. The padlock 1) prevents nitwits from throwing the handle and shutting off power and 2) prevents nitwits from turning power on when someone has shut it off.

The crocodile should be wearing a plastic or rubber sheath over its mouth to prevent electrocution. I assume that the sheath was lost when this object joined the scrap heap.

When our plumber Rick Veach was here to fix a problem with our kitchen pipes, I asked him about this object, and he gave me his best guess: a disconnect-box handle. He suggested several possible manufacturers — Cooper Crouse-Hinds, Cutler-Hammer, and Square D, so I checked their websites, with no luck. At Rick’s suggestion, I also tried a nearby electrical supply company, where the clerk had never seen such an object. But he took me into the (awesome) warehouse and pulled a couple of disconnect boxes from their cardboard boxes. The clerk and I could see the family resemblance right away. A Google search for disconnect box will give you the general idea.

Rick Veach is both smart and wise. I often remind myself of something he once said when contending with our plumbing: “A problem is just a challenge that hasn’t been overcome.”

A related post
Mystery challenge (another strange object)

DNA font

Holy double helix, Batman! A font made of DNA.