----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, April 29, 2005 7:50 PM
Subject: Fw: Fw: Fwd: RE: Humbert's pedophilia on film
Dear List,
Sandy Drescher observed that the word
"Tessellated", from the "etymologic note in Webster's On-line explains
the unexpected-to-both-of-us double l's:
Etymology: Late Latin tessellatus,
past participle of tessellare to pave with tesserae, from Latin
tessella, diminutive of tessera - :to form into or adorn
with mosaic".
I checked the spelling in the Michaelis and
OCE and confirmed Sandy´s find. The is, indeed a missing "L" ( a
distaster?) in my copies of "Ada" ( Penguin, Vintage, Library of
America )
The missing L appears even in "Adaonline" and in
Brian Boyd´s annotations.
In ADA:
Dolly, an only child, born in Bras, married in 1840, at the tender and
wayward age of fifteen, General Ivan Durmanov, Commander of Yukon Fortress and
peaceful country gentleman, with lands in the Severn Tories (Severnïya
Territorii), that tesselated protectorate still
lovingly called ‘Russian’ Estoty, which commingles, granoblastically and
organically, with ‘Russian’ Canady, otherwise ‘French’ Estoty, where not only
French, but Macedonian and Bavarian settlers enjoy a halcyon climate under our
Stars and Stripes.
I cannot imagine
that the "missing L" resulted from faulty revision, the mistake is too regular
in the various copies and editions of ADA.
Was it omitted on purpose?
Jansy