Difference between revisions of "D"

Revision as of 15:43, 11 April 2008

Dabby, Shotton
505

Daffy's Elixir bottle

267; Daffy's 'elixir salutis' was one of many syrups used to keep children quiet. It was invented by the Reverend Thomas Daffy, Vicar of Redmile (d.1680) in Leicestershire, first coming to public notice between 1660 and 1680. A recipe of 1700 for "True Daffy" lists the following common ingredients, many of which were purgatives: aniseed, fennel seed, parsley seed, spanish liquorice, senna, rhubarb, elecampane, jalap, saffron, manna, raisin, cochineal, brandy. A chemical analysis carried out in the 1940s of a bottle of daffy's that had been excavated, confirmed that this was a laxative that would have been made largely from alcohol, with senna as a chief ingredient (Richardmond & Webster, 36). One of the most common forms of alcohol used was gin; hence the slang name daffy's for gin; ALSO: 'What it tasted like one can no longer tell, but it was probably pretty good since it contained brandy, canary wine, oranges, lemons, rhubarb and a certain amount of borax, perhaps to convince customers that it really was a medicine and not just a rather expensive sort of gin' (Earle, 304); 538

Dalmatia
223; a region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea, situated mostly in modern Croatia

Damask
419; plain coloured fabric (usu. white) with a design incorporated into the weave

Damsel, Anne
205; Charles Mason's mother

Daniel
640; a Mohawk Warrior; 675

Darby, Mr.
7; chain-man on M-D Line crew; 444; impersonates M&D (with Cope), 471

d'Argental, Count & Countess
668

Darkling Beetle
88; A dark beetle without wings, also called nocturnal ground beetle, belonging to the family Tenebrionidae ["Tenebrae!" exclaims the contributor of this entry.]

Darlington, Earl of
278; at Raby Castle

Darlington Fair
235; Darlington is a borough of northeast England south of Newcastle. It's annual fair was the place to see many other wonders, such as tomatoes; 495

414; Perhaps French: "d'asp" = "the asp [a small venomous [c.html#cobra">cobra-like</a> snake]"; "notorious Calvert agent" at Hurricanoe

Davies, Miss
268; "Glass Armonica" player

Dawson
575; friend of Tom Hynes

DEATH
195; 247; "to turn Eastward..." 263; 281; 295; 346; 361; 364; 430; 501; 539; 541; 585; 599; "Death-shade of the Forest" 635; 646; "Instant of Tranquility" 660; 673; Insignia, 703; 713

De Bosch, Mrs.
61; 102

Decadence
275

Deep, Mr.
728; "subcontinental genius" who designs Maskelyne's suit; Deep (more often Dip) is a common Indian surname

Defenestration
198; the act of throwing someone (or something) out of a window; 685; The Defenestration of Prague

Deists
261; The beginnings of English Deism appear in the seventeenth century, its main principles found in the writings of Lord Herbert of Cherbury (d. 1648). In De Veritate (Paris, 1624), Cherbury advanced a theory of knowledge based upon the recognition of innate universal characteristics on the object perceived, and rigidly opposed to knowledge supernatural in its origin and determinable in only by strife and conflict. In De religions Gentilium errorumque apud eos causes (London, 1645), he set out the common marks by which religious truth is recognized: (1) a belief in the existence of the Deity, (2) the obligation to reverence such a power, (3) the identification of worship with practical morality, (4) the obligation to repent of sin and to abandon it, and, (5) divine recompense in this world and the next. These five essentials (the so-called "Five Articles" of the English Deists) constitute the nucleus of all religions and of Christianity in its primitive, uncorrupted form. The variations between positive religions were explained as due partly to the allegorization of nature, partly to self-deception, the workings of imagination, and priestly guile; 278; 489; 568; 772

de la Tube, Père
515; at the Jesuit College in Quebec; 531

Delisle, Joseph Nicolas (1688-1768)
213; French astronomer, founded a famous school of astronomy in St. Petersburg in 1726; Chair of Astronomy, College de France; Mappemonde for the Transit of Venus

Delphic Vapors
311; fumes that emerged from a crack in the earth at the Oracle at Delphi in Greece and "inspired" the priestess whose uncomprehensible utterances would then be "interpreted" by a priest.

Delusse
352

Dennis the Meager
632; aka Dionysius Exiguus (Dennis = Dionysius; Exiguus = small, little, meager); perhaps a little Dennis the Menace allusion here [though no evidence for this apparent free-association whatsoever]

De Pugh
96; son of Ives LeSpark

Derek
23; Lunarian

Dermy
723; in Ulster

d'Escaubitte, Pépé
420; Perhaps pronounced: "peppy disco-beat"; French spy?

De Solis et Lunae Defectibus
474; Latin: On Eclipses of the Sun and the Moon

581; Latin: "pollex" = "thumb" = "give a thumbs down"

Devil
pentacle, 342; surveying chains called "Devil's Guts" 447; 471; 605

Devoirs
7 [not found at this page ref. - please correct] French: duties (also school homework)

Dhow
174; An Arab lateen-rigged (triangular sail on a low mast) low-waisted ship

Dicey, Mr.
733; his "County Atlas"

Dieter
160; German on St. Helena; 172; 551

Dimdown, Philip
365; 388; 566

D.I.O.
127; "Damme, I'm Off!" - a men's catchphrase of the late 18th-early 19th centuries; 413; 709

632; Dionysius Exiguus (Dennis the Little, meaning humble) was a sixth century monk born in Scythia Minor, in what is now the territory of Dobruja, Romania, and member of the so called "Scythian monks" community. He established the adoption of the birth of Christ as the initial epoch of the Christian calendar, while compiling a table of dates of Easter. An existing table covered the nineteen-year period denoted 228-247, where years were counted from the beginning of the reign of the Roman emperor Diocletian. Dionysius continued the table for a nineteen-year period, which he designated Anni Domini Nostri Jesu Christi 532-550. ^[1] However... when determining the date of the birth of Christ, Dionysious Exiguus forgot that Caesar Augustus had ruled under the name of Octavian for four years, and thus made a four-year error. Wikipedia entry

Dirk
400; a long straight-bladed dagger

Dismal Swamp Land Company
279; where Gershom says [probably in jest] Geo Washington wants Gershom to invest his money

Dithyrambists
262; in ancient Greece, a dithyramb was an ecstatic hymn to Dionysus, the god of fertility and wine. Thus, the "Dithyrambists" would have been devotees of Dionysus; these days, dithyramb is, according to Webster, "a sus. short poem in an inspired wild irregular strain" or "a statement or writing in an exalted or enthusiastic vein"

Dittersdorf, Ditters von (1739-99)
104; violin virtuoso and composer of 44 operas, and over 100 symphonies; 750

Dixon, Elizabeth
238; Jeremiah's sister

Dixon, George, Jr.
240; Jeremiah's brother; 477

Dixon, George, Sr.
238; Jeremiah's father, who has a "wild-cat coal operation out upon the Fell"; 650

Dixon, George
116; Jeremiah's Great-Uncle; 416

Dixon, Hannah
241; Jeremiah's sister

Dixon, Jeremiah (1733-79)
7; and Emerson, 21; Quaker, 43; "I owe my existence to a pair of Shoes" 238; father dies, 241; his map of the world, 242; in Williamsburg, 394; "To the pursuit of Happiness" 395; Edge of Pleasure, 415; practicing levitation, 423; 440; commence M-D Line, 444; learning to fly, 504; meets Eliza, 536; at Theater with No Name in New York, 562; Enclosure, 587; "off at an angle to the serial curve of his Life" 599 Gravity's Rainbow; "Young Jollification" 648; wants to keep the Line going, 678; accosts slave-driver, 695; willing to go to Cherry Island to view second Transit of Venus, 717; Biography; Email received from Dixon's GGG Granddaughter!

Dixon, Mary Hunter (d.1773)
751; Dixon's second wife; 753

Dixon, Ralph
239; George Dixon Sr.'s father

Dodd
243; "the Peedee" (on the River Tyne, the boy on board a keel)

Dodman
221; 234; 248; 681

Dodington, George Bubb
See [b.html#bubb">Bubb Doddington, George</a>

Dog Goblin, The
229; at Cudgel and Throck

Dolland, John (1706-61)
13; Born into a Huguenot family, and originally a silk weaver, he became an optician in 1752 and, with the help of his son Peter, invented an achromatic telescope. Still in business in the UK (as Dolland & Aicheson) as manufacturers of lenses and eye-glasses.

Dolly
299; measuring Eastern movement of Pennsylvania

Dope
Dagga, 65, 655; opium, 129, 140, 141, 267; Laudanum, 267; George Washington & "hemp" 278; 378; 411; 481; giant hemp plant, 654; "Dagga hath many mysteries" 655

Douceur
458; French, softness

Douglas, Captain
738; of H.M.S. Emerald

Doxies
70; "she beggars, wenches, whores" Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1811)

Draco
189; 587

Draconick Incursion
216; the arrival of a dragon

Dragon
601; "shape" of the land"; 635

DREAMING
70; 108; 109; 112; 155; 179; 205; 320-21; Brittania dreaming of America, 345; 359; 378; 387; 394; 409; 435; 477; 492-93; Captives, 529-30; 531; Mason's, 538; Tenebrae's, 553; 561; 592; 593; 608; 609; 610; 620; 649; 663; 671; 677; "just at the Crepuscule" 690; 696; "Fugitive as a Dream" 703; "were sold to pay" 703; 708; Mason, 718; Mason, 721-23; "ordinary" 725; Mason's of "night-time City" 749; 749; M & D dreaming of each other, 752; "No-body's dream of Life" 755; Mason dreaming of America, 757; 759; 759; 760

Drivelli, Signore
669; perhaps a recycled Driwelling, GR 518; engineer at Peenemünde

Drogo
402; half-breed on Long Island

Druids
210; 219; "bonfire of the Bodleian" 560; 597

Duck
463; a durable, closely woven usu. cotton fabric

372-80; an actual historickal figure; "account of the mechanism of an automaton, or image playing on the German-flute: as it was presented in a memoire, to the gentlemen of the Royal academy of sciences at Paris, by Vaucanson, inventor and maker of the said machine. Together with a description of an artificial duck, eating, drinking, macerating the food, and voiding excrements, pluming her wings, picking her feathers, and performing several operations in imitation of a living duck" (Translated out of the French original, by J.T. Desaguliers. London, Printed by T. Parker, and sold by S. Varillon, 1742); 666-69; Elaboration & Illustration

Duck-Boards
694; a boardwalk or slatted flooring laid on a wet, muddy, or cold surface -- usually used in plural

Duke of Bedford
53

Duke of Glouchester
290; Ale venue in Philadelphia

Dumbledores
470; "peevish Dumbledores in flight"; dialect term for the bumble-bee

Dunkard Creek
673; See Mason's Journal Entry

Durham
216; 233; 238

Dusky Olaf
613; aka Sweden; derived from King Olaf (995-1030 A.D.) who reigned during the lifetime of and was a close friend of Leif Ericsson, the first European to reach North America. Olaf was king of Norway and Sweden from 1016 to 1028. Dusky implies the sunset, contrary to Stig's "all-night sun" (612.6) but more likely a joking reference to skin colour; 'dusky' is an arcane euphemism for 'non-white', and Stig is suggesting that Swedes are relatively dark-skinned.

Dutch Rifle, The
342; tavern where the Paxton Boys had a drink before slaughtering the Indians, with the pentacle on its sign

References

1. ↑ Calendars and Their History