Posts tagged linguistics
“Kertwang”: A Look Into Descriptive Tools 

By: Herbie Waters

Through reading Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, the tone, setting, and descriptions of the lives of characters such as Hal Incandenza are extremely clear. Wallace uses a myriad of literary devices to accomplish this, from lots of spoken, unfiltered dialogue to words that do not exist in the English dictionary lexicon. One particular example of these words is “kertwang”, first uttered by two of Hal’s peers in a locker room of the tennis academy they attend.

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