IJ283
From Literature Concordances
283* · Orin and Joelle
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Page 283
C.U.S.P.
This could stand for several different things — perhaps Canadian-United States Party. In reality, though it was created after Infinite Jest was published, there is an organization called CUSP.
Johnny Gentle
the name of a real musician from the U.K.
O.N.A.N.ism
Onanism is another word for masturbation in the English language
cholera and amoebic-dysentery
Cholera is extreme diarrhea brought on by unsanitary conditions. Amoebic dysentery is also extreme diarrhea, this time brought on by the acquisition of a parasitic infection.
diasporic
here denoting being in exile
Endnote 94
Lebensgefährtin
German: female romantic companion
Page 284
Palmer Academy
There is a Palmer Academy in Florida, but it's in Haines City, sixty miles east of Tampa.
ROTC
Reserve Officer Training Corps, which recruits future officers in the U.S. Armed Forces from universities
A.P.
Advanced Placement
Croate
French for "Croat" but probably just a misspelling
Endnote 95
post-Windows DOS
A DOS is a Disk Operating System, the programming by which a computer runs other programs. Microsoft has not issued a new DOS after Windows as of late 2007.
recompile
Some programs needed to be "compiled" before they run, depending on the computer language in which they're written. Recompiling would be compiling over again.
Page 285
inducement
an incentive
Dodge
A reference to Dodge City, Kansas, to "get out of Dodge" is to disappear because of some kind of perceived or real threat.
Endnote 96
Fredericton, N.B.
Fredericton is the capital of the Canadian province of New Brunswick (N.B.) about 175 miles as the crow flies (much longer if you drive it) from Halifax, Nova Scotia, the nearest "big city" in that part of Canada.
Page 285 (cont'd)
septuagenaric
in one's seventies
patrician
aristocratic
vault the net
It used to be a tradition in tennis for one player to jump ("vault") over the net to congratulate or console his/her opponent after a match.
round-robins
This is a type of tournament in which each player plays every other player once, the winner being the person/team/etc. with the most wins. Compare this to a single-elimination tournament like the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.
deck-sneakers
You can see examples here.
Page 286
Lacoste
a French apparel company, known for producing Izod
levantine
from the Near East, particularly Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, or Israel, i.e., the Levant
kohl
a powder used to darken the eyelids
Terriers
Rhett the Boston Terrier is the mascot of Boston University.
plum
an excellent or desirable thing
hiati
the plural of "hiatus"
Blue Cross
an health insurance company
felo de se
Latin for "felony against one's self," this is a term for suicide.
sedulous
diligent or attentive
Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar
Page 287
Year of Dary PRoducts from the American Heartland
jugular
the largest vein in the neck
'Tenebrae Factae Sunt,' sotto v.
Latin for "There Was Darkness," Tenebrae Factae Sunt is a hymn traditionally sung on Good Friday, the day on which Jesus was crucified. "Sotto v." is shorthand for the Latin sotto voce, which means "in a low voice."
Page 288
locusts
Given the noise their making, Wallace is probably referring to cicadas.
trundle
Used here, it means an impulse that causes something to move.
Salic law
The Salic Law was a legal code of medieval Central Europe that, among other things, prevented accession to a monarchy on the basis of female relationship.
anthracnose
another name for the plant disease known as canker
PAC
Political Action Committee
florid
very red
trilled r's
as pronounced in a Spanish word such as perro ("dog")
'Politics and the English Language'
You can read Orwell's essay here.
Tactical Phalanx
Normally a military term, this would be a phalanx (from the Latin word for "fingers") or row of soldiers deployed for tactical purposes.
MGM
Militant Grammarians of Massachusetts
tiller
a nautical term for the device attached to a boat's rudder to assist in steering
sinecure
a job requiring little or no work
Page 289
"...had a poster of Bill Tilden in his office..."
which implies that the coach was either gay (as was Tilden) or very old-fashioned, since Tilden's career was far in the past
schizoid
here meaning "erratic"
refraction
here referring to the splitting of white light into a spectrum of color
strabismic
having improperly aligned eyes
diffraction
the bending or stretching of waves, assuming light is a wave and not a particle
OCD
Obsessive-Compulsive Disoder
postcoital flanks
Postcoital denotes after sexual intercourse. The flank would be the side of the body between the ribs and hip.
decapitated
beheaded
epithet
a word or phrase applied to a person, often derisively
Page 290
Actaeon Complex
This is not a real psychiatric disorder. Actaeon was a figure from Greek mythology who fell in love with the goddess of the hunt, Artemis, only to anger her and then be changed into a deer, which was then hunted unto death — all of which perhaps suggests an underlying reluctance in the men to pursue Joelle because she might pursue them in return.
phylogenic
regarding the evolution of an organism
ascapartic
A word coined by Wallace, it means gigantic, as Ascapart was a giant depicted in the fiction of, among other people, J.R.R. Tolkien.
elisions and apical lapses
Elisions are the droppings of phonemes from words. Apical refers to sounds made using the tip of the tongue; lapses would be absences of such sounds.
four meters
a little over thirteen feet.
zygomatics
arches on the outer borders of the eyes
HD
high-definition, like a television
pungently
in a way that sharply affects the organs of sense
attar
a perfume extracted from flowers
avuncular
characteristic of an uncle
Page 290
Facsmile
probably a misspelling of "facsimile"
three-meter
almost ten feet
lateral
sideways
bona fried
the other players mean to say "bona fide"
dope-slaps
more commonly known as "bitch-slaps"
orthopedic
denoting an anomaly in the bones
180-kilo
almost 400 pounds
Special Teams
These are the squads responsible in football for tactics that are neither offensive or defensive, e.g., returning kick-offs, kicking field goals or extra points, and, of course, punting.
femur to tarsus
The femur is the bone running from the hip to the knee — the largest bone in the body. The tarsi (plural of tarsus) are the bones of the foot. In between are the tibia and fibula — the bones of the lower leg — and the patella, or kneecap. All of these were apparently broken.
Page 292
caromed
To carom is to strike and rebound; caromed is the past tense.
CNS
Central Nervous System
Gauloise
a French brand of cigarettes
draconian
Derived from Draco, the 7th century BC first lawgiver of Athens, the word means unusually harsh or severe.
Page 293
SUNY
State University of New York
kick serve
a serve in tennis with so much spin that the ball bounces high and to the left (if right-handed) or right (if left-handed) of the receiver
Rockette
Named for the Rockefeller family and nearby Rockefeller Center, the Rockettes are the Radio City Music Hall-based dancers famous for high kicks.
preternatural
out of the ordinary course or nature
parabola
a conic section made by the cutting of a cone from top to bottom; see right
factota
plural for factotum, which is a word for a servant or assistant
herbicide
something that kills plants
Page 294
Schmüberty
Technically speaking, this wouldn't rhyme with "puberty," because an umlaut over a "u" in German produces a diphthong rather than the long /u/ phoneme.
aegis
sponsorship or auspices; from the Greek for "shield"
bilateral
having two sides
S.T.
Special Teams
wide receiver's number
Kickers can only be assigned numbers 1 through 19, while wide receivers get numbers in the 80s.
"...it was in its last season of representing an American university..."
Presumably under the constitution of O.N.A.N., Syracuse, N.Y., became part of Canada.
book-long
This is a bit confusing, since the sense would seem to imply that the "book" is a record book, but the record for a punt in both college and professional football is 99 yards.
Orangemen
the Syracuse football team's name
Page 295
podiatric
having to do with the foot
USMC
United States Marine Corps
Rolling Thunder's big-bellied Berthas
Rolling Thunder was the bombing campaign on North Vietnam carried out by South Vietnam and the U.S. military between 1965 and 1968. A A Bertha is probably just a really big gun, like the famous Big Bertha used by Germany during WWI.
sousaphone
a tuba developed by John Philip Sousa (1854-1932), American composer, for easier carrying with a marching band
extrication
freedom from entanglement
lardy
fat
tête-à-tête
From the French for "head to head," this term denotes a private conversation between two people.
30,0000
The game against Syracuse is a home game, so the audience couldn't have been 30,000 because Nickerson Field has a capacity of less than 10,000 people.
amniotic
pertaining to the fluid that surrounds a fetus in utero
Page 296
cathedran
Presumably Wallace means "like a cathedral," but this is not a real word. The proper word would be cathedrarian.
Yankee Conference
Ironically, in 1997 (a year after Infinite Jest was published), Boston University dropped its football program.
K-L-RMKI/Forsythia Bowl
This is not a real bowl game, but the letters stand for Ken-L-Ration-Magnavox-Kemper-Insurance Forsythia Bowl.
fealty
faithfulness, here to a sports team
4WD
four-wheel-drive vehicle
kudzu
a type of climbing vine indigenous to the U.S. South
pointers
a breed of hunting dog
Pyrex
a brand name of heat-resistant glass
turn blue litmus paper red
presumably something highly acidic
star-fated
as opposed to star-crossed, i.e., predestined for disaster, as Romeo and Juliet
Page 297
dailies
Also called "rushes," these are the pieces of raw film recorded during a single day, including cuts, takes, prints, etc.
turtle-headed
implying that Orin's neck is covered entirely but visible, as with a turtleneck sweater
fireman-carrying
carrying a person over one's shoulder
Dixie Baton-Twirling Institute in Oxford MS
Wallace has taken this idea from a short story by Terry Southern. Oxford, Miss., is the home of "Ole Miss," i.e., the University of Mississippi and is about 60 miles southeast of Memphis, Tenn.
hypertrophied
overgrown anatomically
quadriceps
one of the muscles in front of the thigh
P.T.s
Physical Therapists
thespian
having to do with acting
BTL
the initials of several telecommunications and television companies
Angenieux
a company that produces high-technology optics devices
half-disk-sector
an indication of the amount of digital memory used
#78
This is Orin's jersey number — why he didn't get a changed number is uncertain, as is why it said he had gotten a receiver's number. A number in the 70s would be an offensive or defensive lineman — someone unlike to have contact with the ball.
mattes
This is shorthand for a matte shot, which is "a shot in which parts of the background and sometimes the foreground are masked so that a different background, foreground, image, etc., can be substituted during printing" (Random House Unabridged Dictionary).
spectation
aspect or appearance
Page 298
rheostat
This is "an adjustable resistor so constructed that its resistance may be changed without opening the circuit in which it is connected, thereby controlling the current in the circuit" (Random House Unabridged Dictionary).
Jiffy Pop
a brand name of home popping corn
rpm
revolutions per minute
Storrow 500
a local nickname for Storrow Drive in Boston
barney
a heavy padded cover for a camera to reduce the amount of noise from the camera's moving parts getting onto the soundtrack
Pilotone blooper
Pilotone is an old brand of film equipment, and a blooper is, according to the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, "a receiving set that generates from its antenna radio-frequency signals that interfere with other nearby receivers."
auracopia
a Wallace neologism based on "aura" (sound) and "copia" (plenty) and based on cornucopia (horn of plenty)
Delaware
The Yankee Conference, by the way, ceased to exist in 1997.
U. Vermont and UNH now history
This implies that Vermont and New Hampshire were also annexed to Canada. However, the University of Vermont had not been in the conference since 1974.
four-point stances
with both hands and both feet on the ground
chuff
to blow hard and loudly
stave
to break or crush
scrimmage
the scrimmage line, i.e., where the offense currently has the ball
Page 299
a bright noncontact white
Orin's helmet is white because he hasn't been tackled.
pendular 180-arc of Orin's leg
meaning Orin's leg moves the full length of half a circle around the center that is his hip, in a motion similar to that of a pendulum
gluteal
pertaining to the buttocks
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