Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0002197, Sun, 22 Jun 1997 14:10:27 -0700

Subject
Re: NabVocab (fwd)
Date
Body
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 1997 14:17:30 +0200
From: hassnaebouazza <H.Bouazza@stud.let.ruu.nl>
>Subject: Re: Nabokov mentions (fwd)
> By the way, did VN ever make a list of his favorite words? I
>remember reading one such list by James Joyce; the only word I remember
>from it is "cuspidor."
> I can only guess at what VN would choose, but two come to mind
>for sheer frequency: "supine" and "palpate".
>
>Rodney Welch
>Columbia, SC
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Re Welch & Others about Nab Vocab


A study to be recommended dealing with VN's vocabulary & style is Jurgen
Bodenstein's _THE EXCITEMENT OF VERBAL ADVENTURE: A Study of VN's English
Prose_ (a 2 vol. dissertation 0f 1977[?]). Over the past years I have
jotted down on its margins corrections and additions. VN uses "photisms"
in the second chapter of SPEAK, MEMORY in the context of the mild
hallucinations to which he confesses he has been prone. A word VN detested
is in STRONG OPINIONS, a pathological word, I recall, beginning with N...
napra-??

A. Bouazza
Utrecht, the Netherlands.