"Every whit as great." --South. [1913 Webster] So
shall I no whit be behind in duty. --Shak. [1913 Webster] It does
not me a whit displease. --Cowley. [1913 Webster]
Word Net
whit n : a tiny or scarcely detectable amount [syn: shred, scintilla, iota, tittle, smidgen, smidgeon, smidgin, smidge]Moby Thesaurus
ace, atom, bit, dab, damn, dole, dot, dram, dribble, driblet, dwarf, farthing, fleck, flyspeck, fragment, gobbet, grain, granule, groat, hair, handful, hoot, iota, jot, little, little bit, lota, minim, minimum, minutiae, mite, modicum, molecule, mote, nutshell, ounce, particle, pebble, pinch, pittance, point, scruple, shred, smidgen, smitch, speck, spoonful, spot, thimbleful, tiny bit, tittle, trifling amount, trivia, whoopsee Whit
English
Pronunciation
- , /wɪt/, /wIt/ or , /ʍɪt/, /WIt/ (in Scottish English and some English accents)
Homophones
- wit (in accents with the wine-whine merger)
Noun
Quotations
- 1602 : William
Shakespeare, Hamlet , act V
scene 2
- Not a whit.
Scots
- What.
Whit, or, Isis amongst the unsaved is a novel by the Scottish writer
Iain
Banks, published in 1995. It is told in the voice of Isis Whit,
a young but important member of a small, quirky cult in Scotland.
The community believes that Isis' cousin Morag is in danger, and
Isis is sent to help.
Plot summary
Isis, otherwise The Blessed Very Reverend
Gaia-Marie Isis Saraswati Minerva Mirza Whit of Luskentyre, Beloved
Elect of God III, is the teenage granddaughter and spiritual heir
of Salvador Whit, patriarch of the Luskentyrians. They are a
religious cult who live in a
commune in Stirlingshire,
and reject most technology. They run their
lives according to a collection of beliefs and rituals which were
'revealed' to Salvador when he was washed ashore on one of the
Western
Isles, and 'married' two young Asian
ladies. Haggis pakora is thus a staple of the cult's cuisine.
The novel opens shortly before the Luskentyrian
Festival of Love, held every four years, about nine months before
every leap
year day (February 29).
Those born on that day are believed to have special power. This
includes Isis herself, Elect of God, due to take over leadership of
the cult.
The heart of the novel is Isis' voyage into the
world of 'the Unsaved' (who are also known as 'the Obtuse', 'the
Wretched', 'the Bland' and 'the Asleep'), through southern England looking for
Morag, who is feared to have rejected the cult.
Because of Isis' anti-technology and self-denying
puritanical beliefs, she has to use a Sitting Board (a hard board
she can put over the comfortable seats in cars in order to deprive
herself of cushioning). She also uses the technique of Back-Bussing
in order to avoid paying for a ticket on the bus. This consists of
getting on buses, and when the conductor comes along, asking for a
ticket in the opposite direction while looking confused. This
normally results in being allowed to get off at the next stop and
pointed in the right direction.
While searching for her cousin, Isis meets
Rastas,
policemen, white
power skinheads, and other dubious characters of a sort she has
never encountered before, and tells the story of the cult and the
rationale behind its rules. Isis’ maternal grandmother, Yolanda, a
feisty Texan
woman, appears and lends her support to Isis' quest. Isis' friend
Sophi, although she is not part of the cult, is very close to her.
She meets her whenever she goes to her house to use the
Luskentyrian method of free (if laborious) telephone communication,
using coded rings.
When Isis finds Morag, she learns that though
Morag has lapsed somewhat in her Luskentyrian beliefs (her work as
a porn actress is not
inconsistent with the cult's beliefs) she had every intention of
returning for the festival. The story now takes a more sinister
turn, as we learn that the now supposed motive for Isis' journey
was cooked up by her brother in an attempt to get her out of the
picture in a bid to take over the leadership of the cult.
Isis also learns the history of her grandfather,
and rescues her grandmother from an old people's home. Confident
that her mild senility will recover once she is in a less boring
environment, Isis soon learns more of the origins of the cult from
her. She finds out that her grandfather was a robber on the run,
and that the cult he set up is based on lies.
Returning with her grandmother, enhanced maturity
and a lot more information, Isis must decide what to tell the other
members of the cult.
Literary significance & criticism
Like many of Banks' characters, from Frank Cauldhame in The Wasp Factory to Prentice McHoan in The Crow Road, Isis is a character in a half-unconscious search for knowledge which will inevitably turn her world upside down (this type of novel is sometimes called a 'Bildungsroman').The cult is dealt with very sympathetically,
especially coming just after the Waco Siege in
1993; Banks ensures the theology that Isis believes fervently in at
the start of the book, is coherently and cleverly put together,
even as events cause her to start to doubt.
Banks has called it:
'a book about religion and culture written by a
dedicated evangelical atheist - I thought I was very kind to
them...Essentially, Isis makes the recognition that the value of
the Luskentyrian cult is in their community values rather than
their religious ones. She recognises that efficiency isn't
everything, that people not profit are what matters.'