Always glad to be able to deliver a long-distance tickle, Charles Whoever-you-may-be (marvelous to discover that you never state your surname, and not that I had forgotten it). But I must protest our lazy (and he does know I am teasing here) Mr ED., who refused to post my imprecations against Viktor Fet and my withdrawal of the words of loving kindness that I had mistakenly sent in his direction.
Mr. ED.?
Carolyn
p.s. and thank you, too Chas W and so on, for the Hogarth information. I thought I knew the big Hog man, but I have never seen his nobody, excuse me, his Nobody - or read the joke - what a treat! I must take up a collection of these nobody jokes!
oh, and p.p.s. Besides Capt Nemo in Verne's 20,000 .... the name of the ultimately very important Mr Nobody character in Dickens's Bleak House, was also Nemo - no wonder I couldnt' recall it!
ppps - if one dares to ppp -- I'm not sure if an angry email from me went out today, but if it did I forgot to mention that among my small pantheon of at least sometime defenders I did actually forget to mention Michael Maar - which I think brings the long list to eight. The others (as I really doubt he who must be obeyed sent out that racist, malice-and-spite filled missive) are Alexey, Jansy, Dmitri, Jerry, Stan, DBJ, oh yes, and Mr ED himself. Yes, that does just make eight of them.
An octave!
ck
After deleting 99/100 of the NAB list messages unread for the last 3 or 4 years (I couldn't keep up) I was staggered to open this one by chance and find myself mentioned in such flattering terms. Really don't think I mentioned "nikto - b", which would have meant nothing, not nobody, to me; but I did write as follows:
Subject: | Re: [NABOKV-L] Botkin or nikto (b?) |
Date: | 29/10/2006 |
Can't resist mentioning that the "Nobody" joke has tickled others. William Hogarth produced a fairly well-known drawing of Nobody. This consisted of a man furnished only with head, arms and legs.
Good Lord ! SIX YEARS AGO ! Nobody's memory is better than mine --- and he runs faster, too.
Charles
In a message dated 08/08/2012 16:48:38 GMT Daylight Time,
nabokv-l@UTK.EDU writes:
From: Vladimir Nabokov Forum [NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU] on behalf of Carolyn Kunin [chaiselongue@ATT.NET] Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2012 9:44 PM
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: [NABOKV-L] more from the archives re nikto b'
Found this - have tried to straighten out message from CHW - he was always an interesting contributor - Charles ... can't recall further, but his knowledge of things Scandanavian was impressive. V Fet, as always, is clear as glass, or a bell, or a glass bell, or a bell curve, or ... stop me before I write a poem or something.
Carolyn
>>>>>CHW also mentioned "nikto b", which the Russian speakers
>>>>>have ruled out. I think. But I'd like to clarify this
>>>>>last detail: if someone asks "Who is Botkin?", is "Nikto
>>>>> b" an absolutely unidiomatic answer?
Yes, it is absolutely unidiomatic combination and has to be ruled out.
If to "Who is Botkin?" one wants to say "nobody", the answer is "Nikto"; full answer is "Botkin is nobody", or "Botkin - nikto" [the verb is omitted].
Russian "b" is just an abbreviated particle "by" (like in "Nikto b[y] ne podumal", "nobody would have thought") but "nikto b" does not have any independent meaning.
I brought it up but only as a possible palindrome with first name "Nikto" = "Nikto Botkin" or "Nikto B." (B also being, naturally, Cyrillic "V" for Vseslav or Vladimir).
There is also a traditional K/Ch interplay between down-to-earth pair "Nikto" (nobody)/"Nichto" (nothing), versus more elevated poetic "Nekto" (someone)/"Nechto" (something).
Victor Fet
All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.