Latest News from the Feejees - 5

Ah, the joys of squandered time! I just stumbled on the end of the 1958 revenge-oater, Terror in a Texas Town. My on-screen guide summary mentioned oil and a man with a harpoon, then I saw Sterling Hayden hefting a harpoon the way Alan Ladd caressed his six-shooter in Shane, so I un-muted the TV.

The bad guy's hired gun is intimidating the locals so he can get their land (and oil). Sterling Hayden plays a retired Swedish whaleman or something, who has a particular affection for his own harpoon. Yadda, yadda, yadda. There's a climactic showdown in the dusty street.

The screenplay was written by Dalton Trumbo, while he was blacklisted, so it may be better than I'm making it sound. You can buy the DVD from Amazon ($3.98 new!), or just enjoy the incredible (the only apt word) finale here...

You say Harpooner...

So is it "harpooner" or "harpooneer"? Melville's inconsistency didn't strike me until hearing Moby-Dick read aloud. He even used both within the space of three sentences. Perhaps a scholar can explain this phenomenon.

Based on searches of this 1922 edition in Google Books (which includes "Etymology" and "Extracts", at the end(!?)):

• "harpooneer" appears 12 times, both in direct speech and in descriptive text. This includes one appearance in a footnote, and one in "Extracts."
• "harpooner" appears 62 times, both in direct speech and in descriptive text.

"Harpooneer" appears in the quoted speech of Ishmael, Peleg, and the landlord of the Spouter-Inn. "Harpooner" appears in the quoted speech of Stubb only.

Make sense who may.