Your RBR Word of the Day: quisling

 named for vidkun quisling who is pretty much norway’s benedict arnold, running his native country for the nazis during world war II. met a firing squad at the end.

it also happens to be the name of a clinic in madison wisconsin that was founded by Gunnar Quisling and his three brothers in 1933. it was sort of a mayo clinic for it’s era.

a first cousin of norway’s notorious quisling, this guy was nothing like his relative. gunnar was awarded the legion of merit for developing a device used during the war to locate pieces of shrapnel in the wounded servicemen.

that’s the term i first knew about due to an elvis costello song green shirt that has the line: “Cause somewhere in the Quisling Clinic/There’s a shorthand typist taking seconds over minutes” (this is the first song by him that really caught my attention and turned me on to his work. it remains one of my favorites)

the reference is an intentional mishmash of the two men’s legacies. costello came up with the line after seeing the clinic on tour in wisconsin and then included it in the song to deliberately evoke the imagery of norway’s most infamous son.