re: #313 Sergey Romanov

Is that about the novel? But what does “crux my qualms with slivers” means, pun-wise?

an old way of saying someone was bribed is to say that somebody “crossed their palm with silver”. this expression is still current.

in joyce’s pun, cross is translated back into the latin, bringing in the meanings both of jesus’ literal cross and the metaphorical ‘crux of the matter’. palm becomes qualm, like the moral qualms you have about being bribed. and silver becomes the slivers of wood from the cross that, perhaps, are sticking into your palm and hurting you