>I don't
think that "dobro" in russian literature
really has these sexual connotations.
----

Such generalized connotations are NOT our personal CHOICE, citoyen-comrade!

How LANGUAGE really works (trust me and the Gnoams!): X uses a word W with an intended semantic-range S(X,W) = [XWs1 ... XWsn]; Y reads/hears W with a transformed semantic-range S(Y,W) = [YWs1 ... YWsm]. After inner-diambiguations and decontextualizations (left as a Chomskian exorcize for the reader) Y selects YWsi (i = 1 ... n) as best-plausible-fit (or possibly selects a subset of YWsi's simultaneously if X is suspected of punning). Normally, YWsi will match (within tolerance) a member of the set [XWs1 ... XWsn]. Over time we codify these denotational-connotational matches for each W over as many X/Y interactions as possible (and, of course, for Ws in different languages). It's called Lexicography, a dirty, tedious and inexact occupation (see Johnson, Sam) An observed fact: almost every W ever invented has been used by some X &/or interpreted by some Y, as having some connection with some aspect of sexual reproduction. The innocent words "cunning" and "stunts" provide a Nabokovian example*

* Here we have the Spooner Transform: W1 + W2 -> W2[1] + W1[2 ... n] + W1[1] + W2[2 ... m]
Nabokovians also do anagrams, e.g., my fictitious Radio station FCUK.

Note next how the English adj. "good" is concretized into soft "goodies" and hard "goods" (property _is_ nice). The same, according to my Oxford Russian doorstop, with adj. "dobro" (good) also serving as noun "belongings, property, goods ..."

Random examples where GOODS become sexified: "She loved my family jewels." "A fine property you have to be sure, Molly -- I await a guided tour." "I wouldn't let that bugger in through _my_  back door." Which is NOT to say that we must always find intended naughties.

Nuff sed?

Anagrammatic Work-in-Progress (oops, wrong list?)

ALEXEY SKLYARENKO = NO LAX SKYLARK EYE, 'E (that's a cockney HE)

SK-B

PS: Wonderful BBC VN plus Pushkin "sighting" at the Proms last night. Vasily Petrenko (St Petersberg lad) conducting _my_ LIVERPOOL PHILHARMONIC in Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances. During interval, VN prose and Pushkin poem recited to illustrate the magic of Faberge Eggs and glam St Petersberg Winters. Google "BBC iPlayer" -- you may be able hear the concert & commentary via their website. Not available in all countries, I fea.

Dear Sergei Soloviev,

What is meant by "dobro" in Pushkin's lines: Ukho vsyak derzhal vostro / I khranil svoyo dobro ("Everybody was on his guard / And took care of his belongings")?

Incidentally, the word dobro is also used by Pushkin, in a different sense, in "The Bronze Horseman" (1833). Cf. Eugene's words to Falconet's monument to Peter I (Part Two, l. 177): Dobro, stroitel' chudotvornyi! ("All right, the wondrous builder!"). Note that, on Antiterra, Pushkin is the author of the poem "Headless Horseman" (1.28). If this poem is about the same monument to Peter I (and not about a murder in Texas), it seems that the tsar didn't take sufficient care of a certain part of his body. On the other hand, in Pushkin's long poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila" there is golova (head) still alive without the rest of the body. (About the idiomatic use of the word golova by certain Chernomorsk residents in Ilf and Petrov's "The Golden Calf" see my note in Russian "Van Veen or Ivan Golovin: What was the Real Name of Ada's Protagonist?" soon to appear in Zembla.)

Alexey Sklyarenko

All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors.