Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0019867, Thu, 22 Apr 2010 17:42:08 +0400

Subject
plenum to plennik: alternative way
Date
Body
пленум (plenum) = плен (captivity) + ум (intellect, wits)

ум + узник (prisoner)* + день (day)** = умник (clever person; smart Alec) + уздень (Tatar, "chieftain, prince")***

плен + умник = пленник (captive) + ум

-nik being a personal suffix in Russian, this is just an alternative (more elegant) way to turn Latin plenum into Russian plennik.

Btw., there is плен in Гуинплен (Gwynplaine, the hero of Hugo's L'homme qui rit). Not that I like it, but

пленник + и (and) = Ленин + пик (peak)

*Узница (the word Pushkin used in Andrey Shen'e to render French la captive) is feminine of узник (prisoner). Cf. Шильонский узник, Zhukovski's version of Byron's The Prisoner of Chillon.
**Cf. Ada's Cora Day!
***Обманы хитрых узденей ("the deceptions of sly chieftains") are mentioned in Pushkin's The Caucasian Captive. The word уздень is explained in one of the authorial Notes to the poem.

Alexey Sklyarenko

Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en

Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com

Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/







Attachment