On 14/03/2008 03:42, "R S Gwynn" <Rsgwynn1@CS.COM> wrote:
Given Sybil's Canadian origins, this may be of interest:
http://books.google.com/books?id=XrVbk3EndTcC&pg=PA420&lpg=PA420&dq=night+rote&source=web&ots=Ho1ys7FRII&sig=40ionAWnKZY-Y5l8hW-8AIedZ-M&hl=en
"Hirondelle," the French spelling of "Irondell," corresponds to the name of the coach that Emma takes to meet Leon.
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You can see the danger of googling 'Night Rote.' You find potentially misleading matches where the two words crop up nearby but without any 'collocational' implications. I start to wonder if it matters where & how Nabokov acquired his enormously rich store of words and idioms straddling so many languages. He read so widely, listened abundantly, neologized freely. I see him plucking out seeds and hints of seeds almost subconsciously, building a richly-linked lexical matrix in his remarkably retentive mind.
I recall a previous discussion on the verb 'obtain' used in the sense of 'prevail' or 'result,' as in 'what weather obtains tonight?' To some VN-listers this 'obtain' sounded strange, and dictionaries were consulted, leading to the belief that this usage was somehow 'scientific'; and that, of course, must be Nabokov's 'source.' Well, he did read a lot of 'science' n'est-ce pas? In fact, 'what weather obtains' and 'the situation obtaining in Africa' remain quite everyday phrases to my English ears (I was born 1929 while VN was at Cambridge). Perhaps that usage was always slightly 'BBC Posh' but by no means confined to precise ScienceSpeak. Again, I see no point in pondering where VN picked up that verb usage. Almost any pub or college or radio is the definitive answer.
I offer THE true meaning of Night Rote. It's an obvious pun on Nite Rate, with its salty whiff of the sea, plus an explosive riposte to the Nobel Committee for ignoring Shade and his Creator in the handing out of Literature Prizes.
Stan Kelly-Bootle