Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0016093, Fri, 14 Mar 2008 19:56:05 +0000

Subject
Re: THOUGHTS re: Rote, Eliot
Date
Body
On 14/03/2008 03:42, "R S Gwynn" <Rsgwynn1@CS.COM> wrote:

> Given Sybil's Canadian origins, this may be of interest:
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=XrVbk3EndTcC&pg=PA420&lpg=PA420&dq=night+rote
> &source=web&ots=Ho1ys7FRII&sig=40ionAWnKZY-Y5l8hW-8AIedZ-M&hl=en
>
> "Hirondelle," the French spelling of "Irondell," corresponds to the name of
> the coach that Emma takes to meet Leon.
> ------
> You can see the danger of googling 'Night Rote.' You find potentially
> misleading matches where the two words crop up nearby but without any
> 'collocational' implications. I start to wonder if it matters where & how
> Nabokov acquired his enormously rich store of words and idioms straddling so
> many languages. He read so widely, listened abundantly, neologized freely. I
> see him plucking out seeds and hints of seeds almost subconsciously, building
> a richly-linked lexical matrix in his remarkably retentive mind.
>
> I recall a previous discussion on the verb 'obtain' used in the sense of
> 'prevail' or 'result,' as in 'what weather obtains tonight?' To some
> VN-listers this 'obtain' sounded strange, and dictionaries were consulted,
> leading to the belief that this usage was somehow 'scientific'; and that, of
> course, must be Nabokov's 'source.' Well, he did read a lot of 'science'
> n'est-ce pas? In fact, 'what weather obtains' and 'the situation obtaining in
> Africa' remain quite everyday phrases to my English ears (I was born 1929
> while VN was at Cambridge). Perhaps that usage was always slightly 'BBC Posh'
> but by no means confined to precise ScienceSpeak. Again, I see no point in
> pondering where VN picked up that verb usage. Almost any pub or college or
> radio is the definitive answer.
>
> I offer THE true meaning of Night Rote. It's an obvious pun on Nite Rate, with
> its salty whiff of the sea, plus an explosive riposte to the Nobel Committee
> for ignoring Shade and his Creator in the handing out of Literature Prizes.
>
> Stan Kelly-Bootle


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