Stan
Kelly-Bootle:Thanks,
Alexey, for the fascinating word-plays/links. Also for quoting some fine-flowing
Nabokovian discourses, with hallmark rarities (Webster III?) tickling my Brit
ears:utile = archaic: advantageous... A usage worthy of comment: the driver says
of the road “It abuts at the forest.” Pedants would normally say
(transitively!) “It abuts the forest,” since the “at” is already embedded in the
prefix “a-” (via Latin “ad”) of “a-but.” Since “it abuts” is uncommonly posh
(compared with “it borders”), one is left wondering why the driver’s grammar is
rather peccably colloquial?
Jansy Mello: Couldn't "utile" be some
sort of gallicisme?
The wiktionary, on "abut," also suggests a
subreptitious French influence :"...From Middle
English abutten,
from Old French abouter,
aboter (“to border
on”); compare French aboutir, and also
abuter;
a (Latin ad) + Old French boter, buter (“to
push”). Compare French bout (“end”), and but (“end,
purpose”)." Perhaps,
like Homais, a driver also nods.
btw:
Irony...The incorrectly named Brittany (from McEwan's
Atonement) is called Briony.