Shipping Out
E1009691
"Shipping Out" is David Foster Wallace’s acclaimed essay that recounts his simultaneously humorous and unsettling experiences aboard a luxury cruise, critiquing consumerism and American leisure culture.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Shipping Out canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T12885960 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Shipping Out Context triple: [A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, containsEssay, Shipping Out]
-
A.
Despatch
Despatch is a small town in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, situated between Port Elizabeth (Gqeberha) and Uitenhage within the Nelson Mandela Bay metropolitan area.
-
B.
End Ship
End Ships are rare floating structures found in Minecraft’s End dimension, typically containing valuable loot and the coveted Elytra.
-
C.
Sendim
Sendim is a town in northeastern Portugal known for its Mirandese-speaking community and distinct local culture.
-
D.
Shipman Inquiry
The Shipman Inquiry was a British public investigation that examined the crimes and systemic failures surrounding serial killer and general practitioner Dr. Harold Shipman.
-
E.
Cargo
Cargo is Rust’s official build and dependency management tool that streamlines compiling code, managing libraries, and distributing Rust packages.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Shipping Out Target entity description: "Shipping Out" is David Foster Wallace’s acclaimed essay that recounts his simultaneously humorous and unsettling experiences aboard a luxury cruise, critiquing consumerism and American leisure culture.
-
A.
Despatch
Despatch is a small town in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, situated between Port Elizabeth (Gqeberha) and Uitenhage within the Nelson Mandela Bay metropolitan area.
-
B.
End Ship
End Ships are rare floating structures found in Minecraft’s End dimension, typically containing valuable loot and the coveted Elytra.
-
C.
Sendim
Sendim is a town in northeastern Portugal known for its Mirandese-speaking community and distinct local culture.
-
D.
Shipman Inquiry
The Shipman Inquiry was a British public investigation that examined the crimes and systemic failures surrounding serial killer and general practitioner Dr. Harold Shipman.
-
E.
Cargo
Cargo is Rust’s official build and dependency management tool that streamlines compiling code, managing libraries, and distributing Rust packages.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (50)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
essay
ⓘ
nonfiction work ⓘ |
| alsoKnownAs |
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again (essay version title)
ⓘ
linked to:
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
|
| author | David Foster Wallace ⓘ |
| collectedIn | A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again ⓘ |
| collectionType | essay collection ⓘ |
| commissionedBy | Harper's Magazine ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| critiques |
corporate marketing
ⓘ
escapism ⓘ mass-market luxury ⓘ service industry ⓘ |
| explores |
anxiety
ⓘ
boredom ⓘ death awareness ⓘ desire for comfort ⓘ loneliness ⓘ |
| featuresCharacter | narrator David Foster Wallace ⓘ |
| firstPublicationYear | 1996 ⓘ |
| firstPublishedIn | Harper's Magazine ⓘ |
| genre |
creative nonfiction
ⓘ
literary journalism ⓘ travel writing ⓘ |
| hasInfluenceOn |
contemporary essay writing
ⓘ
cruise industry cultural criticism ⓘ |
| hasTheme |
American middle-class desires
ⓘ
artificial happiness ⓘ commodification of pleasure ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| literaryMovement | postmodern literature ⓘ |
| mainSubject |
American consumerism
ⓘ
cruise ship vacation ⓘ leisure culture ⓘ luxury tourism ⓘ |
| narrativePerspective | first person ⓘ |
| notableFor |
blend of humor and existential reflection
ⓘ
critique of cruise vacations ⓘ detailed depiction of luxury excess ⓘ |
| publicationMedium | magazine ⓘ |
| publisher | Harper's Magazine ⓘ |
| setting |
Caribbean cruise
ⓘ
luxury cruise ship ⓘ |
| style |
detailed observation
ⓘ
digressive narrative ⓘ footnote-heavy prose ⓘ |
| targetAudience | general adult readership ⓘ |
| timePeriodDescribed | 1990s ⓘ |
| tone |
humorous
ⓘ
melancholic ⓘ satirical ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Shipping Out Description of subject: "Shipping Out" is David Foster Wallace’s acclaimed essay that recounts his simultaneously humorous and unsettling experiences aboard a luxury cruise, critiquing consumerism and American leisure culture.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.