Stan Kelly-Bootle:Thanks, Alexey, for the fascinating word-plays/links. Also for quoting some fine-flowing Nabokovian discourses, with hallmark rarities (Webster III?) tickling my Brit ears:utile = archaic: advantageous... A usage worthy of comment: the driver says of the road “It abuts at the forest.” Pedants  would normally say (transitively!) “It abuts the forest,” since the “at” is already embedded in the prefix “a-” (via Latin “ad”) of “a-but.” Since “it abuts” is uncommonly posh (compared with “it borders”), one is left wondering why the driver’s grammar is rather peccably colloquial? 
 
Jansy Mello: Couldn't "utile" be some sort of gallicisme? 
The wiktionary, on "abut," also suggests a subreptitious French influence :"...From Middle English abutten, from Old French abouter, aboter (to border on); compare French aboutir, and also abuter; a (Latin ad) + Old French boter, buter (to push). Compare French bout (end), and but (end, purpose)."  Perhaps, like Homais, a driver also nods.
 
btw: Irony...The incorrectly named Brittany (from McEwan's Atonement) is called Briony.
 
 
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