Somedivide and sumthelot
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Commentary
- This is an example of hendiadys. This phrase has the same prosody as the aphorism, "pennywise and poundfoolish", which also deals with the concept of quantity.
- The simultaneity of division or diminution ("Somedivide") and summation or augmentation ("sumthelot") complements the key phrase on pp. 18-19, "When a part so ptee does duty for the holos we soon grow to use of an allforabit." ("When a petit part is used for the whole, we grow accustomed to the use of the all-for-a-bit [synecdoche].") This section is a microcosmic recapitulation of the universal decomposition and recomposition of language. The letters of the alphabet are abstract glyphs associated with spoken phoneme in merely conventional ways. Yet the predecessors of these characters were hieroglyphs in earlier writing systems, representational pictures directly related to physical models. As glyphs became increasing symbolic, they could be used in a wider range of representations. By reifying the abstract letters of the Hebrew alphabet as tangible objects -- aleph as olive, bet as beet, gimmel as kimmel -- Joyce is reversing the loss of meaning.
