On 16/6/06 14:56, "NABOKV-L"
<NABOKV-L@HOLYCROSS.EDU> wrote:
[. . .] Vladimir Nabokov spoke perfect
Russian and French before he
became the unrivaled master of English prose, and his 1955 masterpiece,
Lolita, was considered the most transgressive book ever published. (It
may still be.) Why, then, could he not bring himself to write the words
"blow" or "blowjob"? [. . .]
"Bring himself," indeed! It wasn't part of his upbringing, or of his
style. Are these locutions prerequisite for admission to the literary
Pantheon? This entire discussion seems to be going on in some adolescent
orgasmic haze . -- DN
Worse yet, DN — Hitching’s question could trigger a dumb, general
meta-annotationology:
“Why on earth did VN NOT use here the more effective expression X — see
e.g., Tropic of C. passim ...”
Which reminds us of VN’s “Miller’s talentless obscenity” (letter to
Elena Sikorski).
A brief scholarly addition to Hitching’s etymologies: Fritz Spiegl
claims that the Cockney euphemism “plating” is the result of trying to
pronounce ‘fellating’ with your mouth full.
Stan Kelly-Bootle