We get it, David Foster Wallace, you knew (/made up) big words.

Okay, status update: I’m at page 154. According to my official Infinite Summer bookmark, I should be on page 210 by now. Sheesh. I kinda slowed down when I got to the extended crappy faux-ebonics-ish dialect passages that made me want to throw the book down or skip ahead. But no, gotta power through. For some reason. Overall, I’m digging Infinite Jest because it’s funny and weird (see stampeding hamsters, below). I’ve accepted that by the last page I may think back and decide that little to nothing has happened.

And now, DFW decoded by M-W.com (when possible).

I’m a lamprey. See my circumoral teeth? I’m gross.

circumoral (adj) surrounding the mouth

synclinal (adj) inclined down from opposite directions so as to meet

uremia (adj) accumulation in the blood of constituents normally eliminated in the urine that produces a severe toxic condition and usually occurs in severe kidney disease

plosive (adj) relating to, or being a speech sound produced by complete closure of the oral passage and subsequent release accompanied by a burst of air, as in the sound (p) in pit or (d) in dog

tympana (adj) a thin tense membrane covering an organ of hearing of an insect

aleatory (adj) depending on an uncertain event or contingency as to both profit and loss

candidiactic (adj) definition unfound, original context lost, no Google hits, maybe I wrote it down wrong?

pedalferrous (adj) not in the dictionary, Google reveals a lot of other people are curious about this word too. This site suggests the word could mean “iron-foot.” I don’t know about that.

Here’s the context:

The noise of the herd is tornadic, locamotival. The expression on the hamsters’ whiskered faces is businesslike and implacable — it’s that implacable-herd expression. They thunder eastward across pedalferrous terrain that today is fallow, denuded. To the east, dimmed by the fulvous cloud the hamsters send up, is the vivid verdant ragged outline of the annularly overfertilized forests of what used to be central Maine.

fulvous (adj) of a dull brownish yellow

peratogenic (adj) well, according to this book, peratogene rocks are those altered by metamophism

atavism (n) recurrence in an organism of a trait or character typical of an ancestral form and usually due to genetic recombination

semion (n) Greek for “sign.” The DFW wiki (of course there’s a DFW wiki) has more to say.

Agh. Clown skull.

zygomatic (adj) of, relating to, constituting, or situated in the region of the zygomatic bone or zygomatic arch (in the face, btw)

carminative (adj) expelling gas from the stomach or intestines so as to relieve flatulence or abdominal pain or distension

sangfroid (n) self-possession or imperturbability especially under strain

mythopoeia (n) a creating of myth : a giving rise to myths

trivalent (adj) conferring immunity to three different pathogenic strains or species

erumpet (n) I dunno, but Google reveals some Harry Potter connections, like a piece of fan fiction entitled “Taking the Erumpet by the Horns.” So.

Anybody else doing the Infinite Summer thing? If so, what page are you on?

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