Subject
Re: QUERY: J Mello re: Fiume, Riviera, "flumine"
From
Date
Body
On 03/03/2008 08:34, "jansymello" <jansy@AETERN.US> wrote:
> John Rea wrote: I have said elsewhere that our author treats language as a
> game with secret rules: and on top of that he cheats... Thus, the word
> "fiume" is the basic italian word for "river". This is what makes the
> consenting reader equate it in meaning with Spanish "rio": and he will have
> quickly followed this line of logic by associating "alto" = "tall"... This
> leads the reader quickly to associaate, "rio grande" with "ri'alto",
> incorporating the [fi] of "fiume' in this fluminous and fulminous brew. These
> word associations are at the basis of a game called by linguists,"folk
> etymology" ... If my words perish on line, please send a copy to ...any Dutch
> Brazilians, an ethnic group with which I claim an affiliation based on a
> German preacher who ended up in Flatbush.
>
> JM: John Rea forgot to add Yalta to the full fulminous fluminous flight that
> took-off from Fialta to end up in Rio Grande ( with its northern flock of
> foreign preachers). In short, fiumi (river in Italian) is unrelated to Fiume,
> Yalta and Fialta to every (unconsenting) reader. So much for the tin-foil and
> shimmer... Btw, I read that the yellow car that crashed against a circus-truck
> in VN's novel was named "Icarus" only in its English translation (Tammi's
> "Problems of Nabokov's poetics" has yet to be consulted) - so it is as
> fictional as the city of Fialta and the novels in which it appears. Do I
> digress?
>
> May a poor but honest lexicographer have the last word:
>
> Zzzzzzzz!: a state of abulia induced by excessive wordplay in one particular
> untypical language family (Indo-European). "Look after the ponce and the puns
> will look after themselves" [generated automatically by the LEXicon Mk I].
>
> All human speakers treat "NL (Natural Language) as a [performance] game with
> secret [hidden] rules." They have no choice, doing what comes naturally. It
> goes with the HomSap pre-wired (but plastic beyond the mapping) territory.
>
> VN's teasing playfulness with words does cross breathtaking borders (but
> stopping short at the "incoherent midden heaps of Dublin"), yet his greatness
> as a writer surely transcends this transient "icing on the cake." His
> sublimely inventive, richly detailed characters, plots, and (dare we say it?)
> socio-political insights are available in all languages for all generations.
> That is to say, the important, Universal bits are translatable! Preferably,
> each age will receive fresh translations since natural languages are forever
> on the move semantically, and more slowly, grammatically. As Kuhn's bumper
> sticker proclaims: Shifts Happen!
>
> VN's target audience of careful re-readers, regardless of their "native"
> tongues, will forever welcome the scholarly footnotes, at least on the second
> or third readings (see e.g., Brian Boyd's AdaOnline advice, for which renewed
> thanks.) Yet there is, undoubtedly, that special "elitist" frisson when we
> decode the cunningly-layered pun or toponymical allusion unaided. And no
> mortal sin if we occasionally read more into a phrase than the Master
> consciously intended (whatever that means). Indeed, VN was highly tickled by
> some of the more "imaginative" interpretations.
>
> It is important, especially for LitCrits, to see NL as an evolving, primarily
> spoken "organism," more than as a set of bound, written dictionaries with
> "meanings" listed 1, 2, 3 ... with "parts of speech" and, if lucky, suggested
> "origins," and authoritarian citations of previous usage. John Rea mentions
> "folk" etymologies, but most etymologies are what Prof. John McWhorter [quod
> google] calls "Just So stories." Transmitted speech, errors and just plain
> phonetic mutations, transforms the eventual written forms of words out of all
> rationally-predictable recognition. Which is why, to cite a well-known
> example, "wheel" and "cycle" share the same Indo-European root.
>
> Puns are more often based on accidental, superficial convergences than on any
> real linguistic or semantic fellowship. To mention briefly John's risible jump
> from DN's mot juste "speck" to Laural "spec[k]ulation," one can (yawn) trace
> in detail their diverse roots via "sprinkle" (where did that rGo?) or,
> unrelatedly as far as anyone can tell, the hundreds of "spec-" words based on
> the Latin for looking, mirrors, watchtowers etc. To a Scouse, a "good speck"
> is indeed a vantage point at the football match, proving again how arbitrary
> puns can be, given each reader's distinct lexis.
>
> Stan Kelly-Bootle
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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
> John Rea wrote: I have said elsewhere that our author treats language as a
> game with secret rules: and on top of that he cheats... Thus, the word
> "fiume" is the basic italian word for "river". This is what makes the
> consenting reader equate it in meaning with Spanish "rio": and he will have
> quickly followed this line of logic by associating "alto" = "tall"... This
> leads the reader quickly to associaate, "rio grande" with "ri'alto",
> incorporating the [fi] of "fiume' in this fluminous and fulminous brew. These
> word associations are at the basis of a game called by linguists,"folk
> etymology" ... If my words perish on line, please send a copy to ...any Dutch
> Brazilians, an ethnic group with which I claim an affiliation based on a
> German preacher who ended up in Flatbush.
>
> JM: John Rea forgot to add Yalta to the full fulminous fluminous flight that
> took-off from Fialta to end up in Rio Grande ( with its northern flock of
> foreign preachers). In short, fiumi (river in Italian) is unrelated to Fiume,
> Yalta and Fialta to every (unconsenting) reader. So much for the tin-foil and
> shimmer... Btw, I read that the yellow car that crashed against a circus-truck
> in VN's novel was named "Icarus" only in its English translation (Tammi's
> "Problems of Nabokov's poetics" has yet to be consulted) - so it is as
> fictional as the city of Fialta and the novels in which it appears. Do I
> digress?
>
> May a poor but honest lexicographer have the last word:
>
> Zzzzzzzz!: a state of abulia induced by excessive wordplay in one particular
> untypical language family (Indo-European). "Look after the ponce and the puns
> will look after themselves" [generated automatically by the LEXicon Mk I].
>
> All human speakers treat "NL (Natural Language) as a [performance] game with
> secret [hidden] rules." They have no choice, doing what comes naturally. It
> goes with the HomSap pre-wired (but plastic beyond the mapping) territory.
>
> VN's teasing playfulness with words does cross breathtaking borders (but
> stopping short at the "incoherent midden heaps of Dublin"), yet his greatness
> as a writer surely transcends this transient "icing on the cake." His
> sublimely inventive, richly detailed characters, plots, and (dare we say it?)
> socio-political insights are available in all languages for all generations.
> That is to say, the important, Universal bits are translatable! Preferably,
> each age will receive fresh translations since natural languages are forever
> on the move semantically, and more slowly, grammatically. As Kuhn's bumper
> sticker proclaims: Shifts Happen!
>
> VN's target audience of careful re-readers, regardless of their "native"
> tongues, will forever welcome the scholarly footnotes, at least on the second
> or third readings (see e.g., Brian Boyd's AdaOnline advice, for which renewed
> thanks.) Yet there is, undoubtedly, that special "elitist" frisson when we
> decode the cunningly-layered pun or toponymical allusion unaided. And no
> mortal sin if we occasionally read more into a phrase than the Master
> consciously intended (whatever that means). Indeed, VN was highly tickled by
> some of the more "imaginative" interpretations.
>
> It is important, especially for LitCrits, to see NL as an evolving, primarily
> spoken "organism," more than as a set of bound, written dictionaries with
> "meanings" listed 1, 2, 3 ... with "parts of speech" and, if lucky, suggested
> "origins," and authoritarian citations of previous usage. John Rea mentions
> "folk" etymologies, but most etymologies are what Prof. John McWhorter [quod
> google] calls "Just So stories." Transmitted speech, errors and just plain
> phonetic mutations, transforms the eventual written forms of words out of all
> rationally-predictable recognition. Which is why, to cite a well-known
> example, "wheel" and "cycle" share the same Indo-European root.
>
> Puns are more often based on accidental, superficial convergences than on any
> real linguistic or semantic fellowship. To mention briefly John's risible jump
> from DN's mot juste "speck" to Laural "spec[k]ulation," one can (yawn) trace
> in detail their diverse roots via "sprinkle" (where did that rGo?) or,
> unrelatedly as far as anyone can tell, the hundreds of "spec-" words based on
> the Latin for looking, mirrors, watchtowers etc. To a Scouse, a "good speck"
> is indeed a vantage point at the football match, proving again how arbitrary
> puns can be, given each reader's distinct lexis.
>
> Stan Kelly-Bootle
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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