Saturday, December 17, 2011

eremia

David Foster Wallace, The Pale King, 2011, page 383
"Donne of course called it lethargie and for a time it seems conjoined somewhat with melancholy, saturninia, otiositas, tristitia - that is, to be confused with sloth and torpor and lassitude and eremia and vexation and distemper and attributed to spleen, for examle see Winchilsea's black jaundice, or of course Burton."


eremia |er-ay-mee'-ah|
a solitude, an uninhabited region, a waste
Etymology:  ecclesistical Greek ἐρημίτης , < ἐρημία a desert, <ἐρῆμος uninhabited.

obtundated

David Foster Wallace, The Pale King, 2011, page 365
"'More like stupefied.  They're full-timers.  Glazed.  What's the other word.  Average burn here's three years.  Obtundated is the word."


obtundation  |ob′tundā′shən|
a greatly reduced level of consciousness. The patient is not yet comatose but is close, arousing only with very strong stimulus.
Etymology: L, obtundere, to blunt, atus, process

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Baker-Miller pink

David Foster Wallace, The Pale King, 2011, page 312
"Two walls' paneling painted over in Baker-Miller pink."






http://www.colourlovers.com/color/FF91AF/Baker_Miller_Pink


and


http://www.sptimes.com/2005/06/08/Tampabay/Gritty_and_pink.shtml

Sunday, December 11, 2011

banausic


David Foster Wallace, The Pale King, 2011, page 229
“Continuing on without pause, he said, ‘Exacting?  Prosaic?  Banausic to the point of drudgery?  Sometimes.  Often tedious?  Perhaps.  But brave?  Worthy?  Fitting, sweet?  Romantic?  Chivalric?  Heroic?’”


banausic |bəˈnôzik; -sik|adjective formalnot operating on a refined or elevated level; mundane.• relating to technical work.ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: from Greek banausikos ‘of or for artisans.’

semions


David Foster Wallace, The Pale King, 2011, page 73
“Our mutual contract here is based on the presumptions of (a) my veracity, and (b) your understanding that any features or semions that might appear to undercut that veracity are in fact protective legal devices, not unlike the boilerplate that accompanies sweepstakes and civil contracts, and thus are not meant to be decoded or ‘read’ so much as merely acquiesced to as part of the cost of our doing business together, so to speak, in today’s commercial climate.


semion
A semion is technically part of an anyon, the latter of which is defined in the OED as "a particle having characteristics intermediate between those of fermions and bosons in two-dimensional space." However, it seems Wallace uses the word as a form closer to "semiotics." A later search reveals that semion is Greek for "sign."


From the Infinite Jest wiki:
http://infinitejest.wallacewiki.com/david-foster-wallace/index.php?title=Pages_87-127

swivet

David Foster Wallace, The Pale King, 2011, page 70 F.N.
“The latter is a good example of the sort of thing that threw the publisher’s legal people into a swivet of anality and caution.


swivet |ˈswivit|noun [in sing. ]a fluster or panic the incomprehensible did not throw him into a swivet.ORIGIN late 19th cent.: of unknown origin.

Friday, December 2, 2011

usufruct


Mark Twain, Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, 1896, page 83
“It was a fine thing to see how that young swashbuckler had made himself so popular in a strange land in so little a while, and without other helps to his advancement than just his tongue and the talent to use it given him by God – a talent which was but one talent in the beginning, but was now become ten through husbandry and the increment and usufruct that do naturally follow that and reward it as by a law.”


usufruct |ˈyoōzəˌfrəkt; -sə-|noun Roman Lawthe right to enjoy the use and advantages of another's property short of the destruction or waste of its substance.ORIGIN early 17th cent.: from medieval Latin usufructus, from Latin usus (et) fructus ‘use (and) enjoyment,’ fromusus ‘a use’ fructus ‘fruit.’