Dear Don,
I don´t know if this note I´m adding here is pertinent in our
Nabokov-L debate. And yet, after I had wondered about the word "Rast" and
got answers about "pederasty" where it was confused with "pedophily" I thought
it might be profitable to mail. I got it from an online dictionary ( Douglas
Harper as I understood it to be signed )
The "rast" in pederast has a beautiful Greek origin: erasthai
( love ).
Online dictionary clarification:
pederasty: "sodomy with a boy," 1609, from Mod.L.
pćderastia, from Gk. paiderastia "love of boys," from paiderastes "pederast," from pais (gen. paidos) "child, boy"
+ erastes "lover," from erasthai "to love." Pederast is
1730s, from Fr. pédéraste, from Gk. paiderastes.
pedagogy: 1387, "schoolmaster, teacher," from O.Fr. pedagogue "teacher of children," from L. paedagogus "slave who escorted children to school
and generally supervised them," later "a teacher," from Gk. paidagogos, from pais (gen. paidos) "child" + agogos "leader," from agein "to lead". Hostile implications in the word
are at least from the time of Pepys. Pedagogy is 1583 from M.Fr. pédagogie, from Gk. paidagogia "education, attendance on children,"
from paidagogos "teacher."
pedophilia: 1905, from Gk. pais (gen.
paidos) "child" + philos "loving." First attested in Havelock Ellis.
Derivative noun pedophile is first recorded
1951.