On 25/1/07 14:22, "jansymello" <jansy@AETERN.US> wrote:
While reading the programme of an entrancing performance, Dreyer comments on 'the Gutter-Perchers, who ever they are, and then a world-famous conjuror.' ( 820) The word "gutta-percha" ( a kind of resilient cautchuck,used as insulator and for dental fillings) appears again, now with the correct spelling, on page 883, when Dreyer and the Inventor are relieved to discover that a rival automannequin is not made of voskin, but is covered by that artificial rubber.
Beside the play with "percha/perch" ( VN's characters often "perch", like birds), we may learn from "Dar" ( The Gift, CCC's page 340), from a discussion about synesthaesia and Rimbaud's "audition colorée":
"If I had some paints handy I would mix burnt-sienna and sepia for you so as to match the colour of a gutta-percha "ch" sound..."
JM: beside the play on ‘percha/percher’ we mustn’t forget the TRIPLE PUN embedded in ‘gutta/gutter.’ You note this pair only as a VN spelling variant. In fact, gutta-percha (Malaysian ‘sap tree’) was a widely-known term at the time of KQK as the chief constituent of the outer resilient plastic layer of GOLF BALLS! As a lad (early-mid 1930s) I heard the obvious puns of golf balls ‘perching’ (dangling) on or near ‘gutters’ (French goutiere).
GUTTER: Now there’s a fine word teeming with fruitful diversions. From any kind of trough or groove, we also find gutters as the white space between two pages on a book — and as the ultimate social insult: “They were born in the gutter ... they speak gutter-English!!” Not to be confused with ‘gooder-German!’
Thus the Gutter [Besser] Perchers (whoever they may be) are a troupe of mediocre, unknown acrobats dangling from their ropes & ladders — hardly birdlike.
The original Malaysian seems to be ‘getah-percha’ which warns us against using the term ‘correct’ to any one of the many plausible transcriptions or pronunciations.
Stan Kelly-Bootle