FW 7.1a --Shem's ancestry--

7.1a: Shem is as short for Shemus as Jem is joky for Jacob...
7.1b: but every honest to goodness man in the land of the space of today...


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FDV: "Shem is as short for Shemus as Jim is for Jacob. Originally of respectable connections his back life simply won't stand being written about" →
"Shem is as short for Shemus as Jim is jokey for Jacob. Afew {A few} are found still who say that Originally of respectable connections his back life simply won't stand being written about" →
FDV2: "Shem is as short for Shemus as Jim is joky for Jacob. A few are still found who say that originally he was of respectable connections ( - - - -  was among his cousins)" →
"Shem is as short for Shemus as Jim is joky for Jacob. A few toughnecks are still found scattered who say that originally very originally he was of respectable connections ( - - - - was among his cousins)"

synopsis: Shem's name — his origins





Shem is as short for Shemus

Shem, son of Noah

Shemus: man in Yeats' Countess Cathleen who sells his soul to devil

Irish change J into Sh, e.g. James to Seumas (pronunciation 'shaymus')

('shamus' for police detective goes back at least to 1920)


as Jem is joky for Jacob.

Dublin accent Jem: Jim

jocular
affectionate

Low Latin Jacobus: James


A few toughnecks are still getatable

US slang roughneck: a 'tough'

getatable: accessible [cites]


who pretend that aboriginally he was of respectable stemming

French prétendre: affirm

aboriginally: from earliest known times

stem: to originate


(he was an outlex between the lines of

lists three men: outlex between RB and HH, and an inlaw to BB was among his connections

illegitimate child

Latin lex: law (so, outlaw)

outlier

read between the lines


Ragonar Blaubarb and Horrild Hairwire,

Ragnar Lodbrok: Viking chief
dragon? wagon?

German blau: blue
German Blaubart: Bluebeard (pantomime about a wife-killer, based on a literary folktale by Perrault)
French barbe: beard

barbed wire

horrid
Harold

Harald Fair Hair: first king of Norway

phrase there's hair, like wire!: there's a girl with a lot of long and stiff hair! (supposed/ unattested catch-phrase of the early 20thC)


and an inlaw to Capt. the Hon. and Rev. Mr Bbyrdwood de Trop Bloggg

VI.B14.53: 'an in-law of'
why TO?

military, government, and religious honorifics

Penguin dots "Mr."

Sir George Birdwood: 19thC Anglo-Indian official, naturalist, and writer (Sva (1910), xxi: 'there must be wars, and in the earlier stages of the evolution of humanity from savagery to barbarism... there was war in heaven; Michael and his angels, against the Dragon and his angels')

Beardwood: friend of Joyce's father (59yo in 1901?)

French de trop: superfluous

fw1 has "Blogg"
Bloggs: mock English working-class name
blague = joke (French)


was among his most distant connections)

VI.B6.63: 'distant relations'

Book of Kells 41: 'the zoomorphic, or animal, forms introduced in the decoration of the Manuscript... distant relations, as it were, of the lion, the calf, and the eagle, of the Evangelical symbols'





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