A "Finnegans Wake" Lextionary Quotes

“With all memorials and monuments it’s wise to take Stanislaw Lee’s advice: “When smashing the monuments, save the pedestals—they always come in handy later.”
― Bill Cole Cliett, A "Finnegans Wake" Lextionary: Let James Joyce Jazz Up Your Voca(l)bulary

“malestimated FW 125.21 v. Ill or badly and calculated approximately or estimated. (“still today insufficiently malestimated notesnatcher”) The projected budget that an American president sends each year to Congress is invariably “malestimated.” This is especially true for the cost of our wars.”
― Bill Cole Cliett, A "Finnegans Wake" Lextionary: Let James Joyce Jazz Up Your Voca(l)bulary

“he “went under the grass quilt on us.” I may be so far off base as to be out of the ballpark, but with “sinflute and dropped him” I hear an echo of, or at least the meter of, the Duke of Wellington’s order for the last charge at Waterloo, “Up guards and at ‘em!”
― Bill Cole Cliett, A "Finnegans Wake" Lextionary: Let James Joyce Jazz Up Your Voca(l)bulary

“It was surgery for a duodenal ulcer that finally caused his death or, as the Wake puts it, “when the angel of death kicks the bucket of life”
― Bill Cole Cliett, A "Finnegans Wake" Lextionary: Let James Joyce Jazz Up Your Voca(l)bulary

“langwedge FW 73.1 n. Spoken or written speech or language used to split or separate like a wedge.”
― Bill Cole Cliett, A "Finnegans Wake" Lextionary: Let James Joyce Jazz Up Your Voca(l)bulary

“inwader FW 581.3 n. One who enters a country with force for conquest or an invader who walks through shallow water or wades ashore during the invasion. The most famous “inwader” of all must be General Douglas McArthur who, after being driven from the Philippines by the Japanese, retook the country after having to wade from a landing craft to the shore, proclaiming, “People of the Philippines, I have returned.”
― Bill Cole Cliett, A "Finnegans Wake" Lextionary: Let James Joyce Jazz Up Your Voca(l)bulary

“inuendation FW 194.32 n. A flood or inundation of insinuation or innuendo. HCE certainly suffers from an “inuendation” after his midnight encounter with the Cad in Phoenix Park. Even though the resulting trials prove nothing definite, the “inuendation” still remains, and HCE continues to suffer guilt simply from accusation. (“all waived to a point and then all inuendation”) (See contrawatchwise”
― Bill Cole Cliett, A "Finnegans Wake" Lextionary: Let James Joyce Jazz Up Your Voca(l)bulary

“McHugh also identifies the Insuppressible as an antiparnellite newspaper. With these two connections, any breaking story confirming Parnell’s approval or support of the Phoenix Park murders would have instantly stopped the Insuppressible’s presses, presenting something of a paradox.”
― Bill Cole Cliett, A "Finnegans Wake" Lextionary: Let James Joyce Jazz Up Your Voca(l)bulary

“hystry FW 535.18 n. A record of the past or history presented with unrestrained emotion or hysteria.”
― Bill Cole Cliett, A "Finnegans Wake" Lextionary: Let James Joyce Jazz Up Your Voca(l)bulary

“McHugh gives as references here “annyma roner” as “Ahriman,” the “Zoroastrian principle of evil” and the song “Little Annie Rooney,” and “moother of mine” as the song “Mother of Mine.”
― Bill Cole Cliett, A "Finnegans Wake" Lextionary: Let James Joyce Jazz Up Your Voca(l)bulary

“Vico believed that it was God’s voice heard through thunder that brought the third or human age to an end and frightened humanity back into caves where the cycle of ages began anew. There are ten thunder words in Finnegans Wake, nine with 100 letters and the tenth with 101 letters. The first thunder word begins “bababa…” in imitation of thunder with the idea that stuttering signals God’s guilt for messing up the creation business in so horrid a manner. (See thuthunder.)”
― Bill Cole Cliett, A "Finnegans Wake" Lextionary: Let James Joyce Jazz Up Your Voca(l)bulary

“horrhorrd FW 378.7 v. Listened to or heard in great fear or horror. (“oversense he horrhorrd his name in thuthunder”) Joyce had a great horror of thunder and avoided cities that were known to have many thunderstorms.”
― Bill Cole Cliett, A "Finnegans Wake" Lextionary: Let James Joyce Jazz Up Your Voca(l)bulary

“Oscar Wilde revealed his discovery that “alcohol, when taken in sufficient quantities, produces all the effects of intoxication.”
― Bill Cole Cliett, A "Finnegans Wake" Lextionary: Let James Joyce Jazz Up Your Voca(l)bulary

“crosskisses FW 111.17 n. xxx’s at the end of a letter to signify touches with the lips as a sign of love or kisses. (“must now close it with fondest to the twoinns with four crosskisses for holy paul holey corner holipoli whollyisland pee ess from”) These “crosskisses” come at the end of one of a number of versions of the famous letter from Boston that the hen pecks out of the kitchen midden and even appear much later in Finnegans Wake with “X.X.X.X.” (See anomorous.) cruelfiction FW 192.19 n. 1. Fiction that delights in causing pain and suffering to to the extent that readers feel they have been put to death by being fastened to a cross, becoming victims of the cruel torture of crucifixion. Most critics have labeled Finnegans Wake as a prime example of “cruelfiction.” Readers will have their own candidates for this label, usually novels they were assigned to read for a book report in high school. 2. Fiction that’s subject is cruelty, such as almost any novel by the Marquis de Sade or short stories and novels that deal honestly with the treatment of Native Americans by the government of the United States. (“O, you were excruciated, in honour bound to the cross of your own cruelfiction!”)”
― Bill Cole Cliett, A "Finnegans Wake" Lextionary: Let James Joyce Jazz Up Your Voca(l)bulary

“cropse FW 55.8 n. In A Guide Through “Finnegans Wake,” Edmund Epstein writes that “’corpse’ combines with ‘crops’ to make a wholly new and richly evocative contra-dictory word, ‘cropse,’ combining the idea of death with resurrection.” This is the grand theme of the Wake, falling and rising, decline and renewal, death and rebirth. (“on the bunk of our breadwinning lies the cropse of our seedfather”) Epstein adds that “’seedfather’ does not create a wholly new word, for both elements of ‘seedfather’ are already existent words, with a double meaning contained in ‘seed’; only the combination is novel.”
― Bill Cole Cliett, A "Finnegans Wake" Lextionary: Let James Joyce Jazz Up Your Voca(l)bulary

“combarative FW 140.33 adj. One who likes to fight or is combative regarding how something is alike or different, that is over comparative issues. Political talk shows featuring “combarative” hosts of both liberal and conservative persuasions make for some argumentatively entertaining evenings on television. (“after all the errears and erroriboose of combarative embattled history”)”
― Bill Cole Cliett, A "Finnegans Wake" Lextionary: Let James Joyce Jazz Up Your Voca(l)bulary

“Brandy forwarded a freshly penned limerick just emailed to him by the distinguished Wakean John Gordon: He left her the secondbest bed Before lying down with the dead; ‘Twas Will’s way to trumpet His Anne was a strumpet And to rue that the two of them wed. It seemed a spooky coincidence coming so suddenly after my writing about what is certainly an obscure subject, but then I remembered G. K. Chesterton wrote that “Coincidences are spiritual puns,” and somehow it made a strange sort of sense, somewhat like Finnegans Wake.”
― Bill Cole Cliett, A "Finnegans Wake" Lextionary: Let James Joyce Jazz Up Your Voca(l)bulary

“The Liffey was said to be the color of tea from the dumpings of the dye-houses on its banks, and Joyce asked Faber and Faber, the publishers of his Anna Livia Plurabelle book, to print the cover in brown to match the color of the Liffey.”
― Bill Cole Cliett, A "Finnegans Wake" Lextionary: Let James Joyce Jazz Up Your Voca(l)bulary

“In Ulysses Haines remarks, “But, I say, Mulligan, you do make strong tea, don’t you.” Buck Mulligan replies in an old woman’s voice, “When I makes tea I makes tea, as old mother Grogan said. And when I makes water I makes water.”
― Bill Cole Cliett, A "Finnegans Wake" Lextionary: Let James Joyce Jazz Up Your Voca(l)bulary

“(“—I’ll gie ye credit for simmence more if ye’ll be lymphing. Our four avunculusts.”) In this instance the “four avunculusts” are the four evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, know in Finnegans Wake as “Mamalujo.”
― Bill Cole Cliett, A "Finnegans Wake" Lextionary: Let James Joyce Jazz Up Your Voca(l)bulary

“bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk! FW 3.15-17 n. Onomatopoeia for the sound of thunder. This is the first of 10 thunder words in Finnegans Wake, it and eight others having 100 letters and the 10th having 101 letters, making 1,001 letters that suggest the Arabian Nights or, in Wakese, “this scherzarade of one’s thousand and one nightinesses.” As a numerical palindrome, 1001 suggests the circular system of Vico and the Wake’s never-ending, never-beginning stylistic structure. In Vico’s system, the Divine Age is the first of three ages in which humanity hears the voice of God in thunder and, driven by fear (“the fright of light”) to hide in caves, pray “Loud, hear us!” “Who in the name of thunder’d ever belevin you were that bolt?” In keeping with this theme, the first thunder word is made up of many words similar to thunder in various languages: “kamminarro” (Japanese kaminari); “tuonn” (Italian tuono); “bronnto” (Greek Bronte); “thurnuk” (Gaelic tornach); “awnska” (Swedish aska); “tonner” (French tonnerre and Latin tonare); “tova” (Portuguese trovao); and “ton” (Old Rumanian tun).”
― Bill Cole Cliett, A "Finnegans Wake" Lextionary: Let James Joyce Jazz Up Your Voca(l)bulary

“baallad FW 593.15 n. A poem, song, or ballad that tells a story about young sheep or a lamb. The nursery rhyme about Mary’s little lamb that broke the rules by following her to school is perhaps the most famous “baallad” of them all, although the “baallad” about the black sheep that had three bags full of wool is equally well known. An English expression for a nice, sweet young person is a “baa-lamb.”(“And let Billey Feghin be baallad out of his hummuluation.”)”
― Bill Cole Cliett, A "Finnegans Wake" Lextionary: Let James Joyce Jazz Up Your Voca(l)bulary

“apuckalips FW 455.1 n. The revelation of a cataclysmic upheaval or Apocalypse when you can pucker up your lips and kiss your ass goodbye. (“nor homemade hurricanes in our Cohortyard, no cupahurling nor apuckalips nor no puncheon jodelling nor no nothing”) Punch and Judy appear here.”
― Bill Cole Cliett, A "Finnegans Wake" Lextionary: Let James Joyce Jazz Up Your Voca(l)bulary

“applegate FW 69.21 n. Eve and Adam’s fall in the Garden of Eden after eating the forbidden (See forebitten.) fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, popularly thought of as an apple. This is one of those instances in which Joyce came up with a term that was later to become widely used in popular culture. Instances include Watergate, Contragate, and Monicagate, though in Monicagate the term “gate” assumes an alluded meaning that would require an “R” rating. (“everything was got up for the purpose he put an applegate on the place by no means as some pretext a bedstead”) It’s been said that the real problem in Eden was not with the apple on the tree but with the pair on the ground.”
― Bill Cole Cliett, A "Finnegans Wake" Lextionary: Let James Joyce Jazz Up Your Voca(l)bulary

“annuysed FW 342.28 v. Entertained or amused in a way that also makes one troubled or annoyed. We are more often than not “annuysed” watching America’s Congress at work.”
― Bill Cole Cliett, A "Finnegans Wake" Lextionary: Let James Joyce Jazz Up Your Voca(l)bulary

“acknuckledownedgment FW 344.8 n. The admission or acknowledgement that one has worked hard and earnestly or knuckled down in achieving an objective. There is also the suggestion that knuckles came into play in the process, hinting at a fistfight or at least some sort of battle. On the evening of November 4, 2008, John McCain was gracious in giving Barack Obama a sincere “acknuckledownedgment” for his successful presidential campaign.”
― Bill Cole Cliett, A "Finnegans Wake" Lextionary: Let James Joyce Jazz Up Your Voca(l)bulary

“abnihilisation FW 353.22 n. From nothing, the annihilation or complete destruction of something back to nothing. Joyce maintained that while he created Ulysses out of next to nothing, he was creating Finnegans Wake out of nothing. The Latin ab nihil for “from nothing” and the philosophical meaning of nihilism as the denial of all existence come into play here.”
― Bill Cole Cliett, A "Finnegans Wake" Lextionary: Let James Joyce Jazz Up Your Voca(l)bulary

“abcedminded FW 18.17 n. Alphabet-minded or interested in the origin of the letters of the alphabet and their uses in forming words. This suggests an Old English word for alphabet—abecede. The “abcedminded” are apt to become lexicographers or interested in the art of lexicography. With a slight stretch, absent-minded comes to mind, something literary and scholarly types are typically portrayed as being.”
― Bill Cole Cliett, A "Finnegans Wake" Lextionary: Let James Joyce Jazz Up Your Voca(l)bulary

“painapple FW 167.15 & 246.29 n. 1. An apple that causes suffering or pain.”
― Bill Cole Cliett, A "Finnegans Wake" Lextionary: Let James Joyce Jazz Up Your Voca(l)bulary

“anthrapologize FW 151.7 v. Express regret or apologize for the science of man or anthropology. So many mistakes, unintentional and sometimes not, have been made in the study of human origins and development, especially racial, along with customs and beliefs, that some apologies are needed.”
― Bill Cole Cliett, A "Finnegans Wake" Lextionary: Let James Joyce Jazz Up Your Voca(l)bulary