Word: whirr
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...construction crews lay brick upon brick and the architects debate the true meaning of space, I hear the terrifying whirr which no amount of novocaine or promises of soft ice cream will make go away. Thomas J. Slegel, GSAS...
Such a character was Captain Mac Whirr of Joseph Conrad's short story Typhoon, a man whose physiognomy was "the exact counterpart of his mind: it had no pronounced characteristics whatever; it was simply ordinary, irresponsive, and unruffled." Mac Whirr, said Conrad, had "just enough imagination to carry him through each successive day." Yet that meager imagination became the hero of the tale, for when a monstrous storm arose at sea, and the good captain was advised by all the voices of reason to sail around and behind the trouble, he of the consistent mind responded, "A gale...
...well as to the body." The historical horrors of industrialization (child labor, Dickensian squalor, the dark satanic mills) translate into the 20th century's robotic busywork on the line, tightening the same damned screw on the Camaro's firewall assembly, going nuts to the banging, jangling Chaplinesque whirr of modern materialism in labor, bringing forth issue, disgorging itself upon the market...