Jarrell's "upside down"

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Tue Mar 22 02:11:05 UTC 2011


On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 9:46 PM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> In a note to accompany "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner," Randall
> Jarrell wrote that because of the turret's position in the belly of the
> aircraft, the gunner would be "hunched upside-down in his little sphere."
>
> But of course the gunner was not "upside down" in the only sense recognized
> by the OED. (A "fig." sense is "in a state of overthrow, reversal, or
> disorder.") Â He was "upside down" only in the sense that sky was below him
> and the the solid "ground" of the bomber was above his head. The
> gunner actually lay on his back with his knees (and arms) up, though in
> extreme circumstances he might be virtually standing on his feet. Â But the
> turret wasn't built to go "upside down." Â Is lying on your back "upside
> down"?
>
> Jarrell's usage sounds simultaneously weird and natural to me. In fact, I've
> never thought of how "strange" it is till now.
>

How long can a person be bottom-side upward before the pooling of
blood inside his brain caused him to pass out and, perhaps, suffer
irreparable brain-damage? W:pedia says that

"The gunner _sat_ in the turret with his back and head against the
rear wall, his hips at the bottom, and his legs held in mid-air by two
footrests on the front wall."

This is the position that [I think that] I recall from drawings in
USAAF-themed funnybooks and funnypapers like "Terry and The Pirates"
that I read During The War.
--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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