In spite of this difficult publishing history, Naked Lunch quickly came to be considered a classic by critics. As the first usage below discusses, in 1965, it was already being included on lists of the best American novels published since World War II. In 2005, the book reviewers at Time magazine included the novel on their list of the greatest English-language novels published from 1923 to 2005.

An interesting side note is that William Burroughs was the grandson of the founder of Burroughs Corporation, which in the 1960′s and 1970′s was considered one of the Seven Dwarfs of the Computer Industry.

“3M” is an American company best known for such products as Scotch Tape and Post-It notes. Its current name comes from its former name “the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company.” Even though the “mining” part of its former name is irrelevant to its current business with its focus on technology, medical, and consumer products, it still comes back to cloud the public’s image of the firm: in Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom (2010), “[y]oung marrieds, Walter and Patty Berglund are middle-class university graduates living in Minnesota (a step away from the Missouri of The Corrections), he working for 3M (a mining [sic] and manufacturing company), she staying home to bake cakes and bring up a frighteningly obedient daughter, Jessica, and a son, Joey, whose role is to test all the boundaries an American teenager can find.”—no author listed, “The stuff of life: Jonathan Franzen’s brilliant new novel studies the planet, happiness and marriage,” The Economist, August 28, 2010, p. 72.

3M is one of the most diversified and international companies in the world, making over 55,000 different products with operations in over 60 countries and its products sold in over 200.  It is also famous for its culture of innovation with a history of investment in research and development and development of new products.

3M is one of the 30 components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and has been since 1976, making it one of six longest members of this measure of the U.S. stock market’s performance. The company is also a member of the Standard and Poor’s 500.

“Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unam incolunt Belgae, aliam Aquitani, tertiam qui ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra Galli appellantur.” (“All Gaul is divided into three parts, one of which the Belgae inhabit, the Aquitani another, those who in their own language are called Celts, in ours Gauls, the third.”)—Julius Caesar, Commentarii de Bello Gallico.

Often the first book in Latin that school children read, Commentaries on the Gallic War and the division of Gaul into three parts is often thought of as common enough knowledge to be used guidebooks without further reference or citation: “A Celtic, then Gallic settlement, Lyon was chosen as a base camp by Julius Caesar for his conquest of Gaul. Under Augustus it became the capital of the Roman Empire’s ‘Three Gauls’ (Aquitaine, Belgium and the province of Lyon) complementing the older province centred [sic] on Narbonne.”—Gwen Cannon, ed., The Green Guide France, (London, UK: Michelin Apa Publications Ltd., 2007), p. 299.