Professor Boyd: many thanks for the perfectly valid point about what VN meant by “stang.” And for repeating the excellent advice: Always consult VN’s pet W2 (Webster II) first. That can often curtail much idle speculation, source- & soul-searching, and VN-mind-reading.
There remain some teasing points: how did VN come to find stang, and then, the more subjective question, why did he use stang, rather than other possible prosody-preserving synonyms? Before you say: “He obviously found it in W2, you daft sod,” consider the traditional functions of dictionaries and how we all (including VN) normally exploit them.
We encounter an unfamiliar word and then look it up! From headword to definition, examples of usage, etymologies, possibly synonyms of the headword. We don’t usually search a dictionary painfully looking for keywords of unknown synonyms of words we already know!
(Well, of course, many of us [including VN] do enjoy much random as well as goal-driven lexicographical browsing. Recall the old, old story of someone reading the OED from A to Z, then declaring she loved the dramatis personae but hated the plot. Note also the existence of REVERSE dictionaries that try to map definitions to headwords, an almost impossible many-to-few mapping for polysemic languages.)
Rather, we hope that the dictionary provides synonyms (and antonyms), so we look up the known word and hope to find a rich list of equivalents, or at least a useful SEE ALSO list. (Not all see-alsos are useful. They often link to related topics rather than synonyms. Under gulag, you might find See also Stalinism; kulak; holocaust.) Note also that the usual collections (Roget etc) offering synonyms are quite sparse for rare technical and dialect words, the pride of W2 and OED.
We have the following scenarios (maybe more):
1. VN had encountered stang somewhere and it became part of his remarkable, photographic-memory empowered vocabulary.
Whether he knew its meaning instanter from context, or had to check the meaning in W2, or simply stumbled across it browsing W2, is not really relevant, and possibly unknowable (absent a note lurking in the archives or DN’s memory!)
2. He checked the W2 entry for rail (maybe other known rail synonyms) seeking a monosyllabic substitute. I did a quick browse of the W2 entry
(We assume he already knew the many common meanings of rail!)
RAIL, n.
1. A cross beam fixed at the ends in two upright posts.
[In New England, this is never called a beam; pieces of timber of the proper size for rails are called scantling.]
2. In the United States, a piece of timber cleft, hewed or sawed, rough or smooth, inserted in upright posts for fencing. The common rails among farmers, are rough, being used as they are split from the chestnut or other trees. The rails used in fences of boards or pickets round gentlemen''s houses and gardens, are usually sawed scantling and often dressed with the plane.
3. A bar of wood or iron used for inclosing any place; the piece into which ballusters are inserted.
4. A series of posts connected with cross beams, by which a place is inclosed.
In New England we never call this series a rail, but by the general term railing. In a picket fence, the pales or pickets rise above the rails; in a ballustrade, or fence resembling it, the ballusters usually terminate in the rails.
5. In a ship, a narrow plank nailed for ornament or security on a ship''s upper works; also, a curved piece of timber extending from the bows of a ship to the continuation of its stern, to support the knee of the head, &c.
RAIL, n. A bird of the genus Rallus, consisting of many species. The water rail has a long slender body with short concave wings. The birds of the genus inhabit the slimy margins of rivers and ponds covered with marsh plants.
RAIL, n.
A woman''s upper garment; retained in the word nightrail, but not used in the United States.
In spite of many chatty cross-reference and usage guides, I don’t see a link from rail to the synonym stang! Neither does the W2 stang entry link to rail. My initial hunch of dialectal links with sting/stung is confirmed
Stang, v. i. [Akin to sting; cf. Icel. stanga to prick, to goad.] To shoot with pain. [Prov. Eng.]
More research needed on other W2 entries that might link to stang = rail.
Stan Kelly-Bootle
On 15/01/2010 19:50, "b.boyd@auckland.ac.nz" <b.boyd@AUCKLAND.AC.NZ> wrote:
Sorry to be a party-pooper, but we know what Nabokov's preferred English dictionary was, so it seems pointless to decide that this or that word he has used is a coinage, when it's in Webster's Second.
There, there are 5 different entries for "stang," and the first sense of the first entry is "A pole, rail, or beam."
"Larvarium" it defines as "A box or cage for the rearing of insect larvae."
As far as I know it is still possible to obtain old copies of Webster's Second International Unabridged at ridiculously low prices from Merriam-Webster.
Brian Boyd
On 15/01/2010, at 9:20 AM, jansymello wrote:
Gary Lipon to jansymello [I mean, the substantive "Stange" meaning "perch,"] I don't get an entry for "stange" meaning "perch" in thefreedictionary.com <http://thefreedictionary.com> , my first goto source for words, only a town in Norway. So I'm confused as to what you mean...The peculiar thing is that "rail" and "stang" are both monosyllabic and thus work equally well in terms of prosody. Surely VN would have considered a common word like "rail"; thus must of really intended "stang"...
JM: I originally checked in the Oxford Duden Dictionary (German), but on-line there is Stange, indicating perch, stick,rail...:
Stange Stange f , -, -n
a (=langer, runder Stab) pole
(=Querstab) bar
(=Ballettstange) barre
(=Kleiderstange, Teppichstange) rail
(=Gardinenstange, Leiste für Treppenläufer) rod
(=Vogelstange) perch
(=Hühnerstange) perch, roost
(=Gebissstange) bit, (Hunt) (=Schwanz) brush
(=Geweihteil) branch (of antlers) (fig) (=dünner Mensch) beanpole inf
b (=länglicher Gegenstand) stick
eine Stange Zigaretten a carton of 200 cigarettes
c (=zylinderförmiges Glas) tall glass
d (Redewendungen) ein Anzug von der Stange a suit off the peg (Brit) or rack (US)
von der Stange kaufen to buy off the peg (Brit) or rack (US)
jdn bei der Stange halten inf to keep or hold sb
bei der Stange bleiben inf to stick at it inf
jdm die Stange halten inf to stick up for sb inf , to stand up for sb
eine (schöne or ganze) Stange Geld inf a tidy sum inf
Translation Stange in the German-English Collins dictionary <http://dictionary.reverso.net/german-english/Stange>
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