Stan Kelly-Bootle:
"My point was not about the frequency of
‘midst’ amongst [sic] different breeds of English...My point concerned CK’s
particular use of ‘midst,’ unusual in both Brit and American English:
migraine causes him to ‘leave in the midst of a concert.’ My
spinal tap is increased by Jansy’s discovery of CK quitting the nasty publisher
‘in the midst of a SUNSET.’ I find this sublimely unexpected and
Nabokovian beyond rational analysis."
Jansy Mello: It was Mike Marcus
who mentioned the symphonic "in the midst of a vast
sunset."
Another credit is due to Matt Roth because, after I
quoted him in a foot-note in my answer to Jerry Friedman, I failed to add his
name or initials to his words.
I hope Alexey Sklyarenko changes
his mind about leaving the Nabokov-List, publications,
sites...
In a former posting he wrote: "Although in her Russian translation of PF Vera Nabokov renders
"theatrical ululations" as teatral'nye zavyvaniya, there is a
semantically closer word: ulyulyukanie. It comes from ulyulyukat'
(to halloo; to whoop, in mockery). According to Dahl, ulyulyukat'
means "to hunt superior type of game (krasnyi* zver'): a fox, a wolf, a
bear, to cry ulyulyu!" (One cries "atu!" when hunting a hare
and "us'!" when hunting a hog.) Dahl also glosses
ulyulya, dialectal word for sova ("owl") rhyming
with pilyulya ("pill"). Strange enough, he does not
mention Latin ulula deriving ulyulya from German
Eule (with a question mark, though). In Dahl's dictionary
ulyulyukat' is preceded by ulyulyukivat', "to lull a child to
sleep" (or "to death"). Cf. German einlullen. There is
ulyulyukanie in VN's Camera Obscura and Solus
Rex."
I was fascinated by the informations concerning
"ulyulyukanie," "ulyulykat and "zavyvanlya," and the
sounds "Eule/Owl," contrasted with the opposite mood in "to
lull," in another instance of how one or two letters make all
the difference (VN's "Comic/Cosmic"- and now... "ulyulyukat/ulyulyklvat")