Subject
Query: chuckrick / xuxrik in Invitation to a Beheading (fwd)
Date
Body
EDITOR's NOTE. See my comment at the end. Perhaps this item should be
included in our on-going "Nabokovian Menus" Project?
____________________________________________________________
1. Steve Segal (segal@trib.infi.net) forwarded the following query (on
behalf of a friend) to me via Zembla. I am unable to supply a plausible
response. Any takers?
>I am writing on behalf of a friend who is reading "Invitation to a
>Beheading." He came across the term "fried chuckrick" and could not find a
>definition.
Jeff Edmunds
---------------------------------------------------------
2. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 20:01:16
-0400 From: Vitaly Kupisk <kupisk@compuserve.com> -----------------
Or, for that matter, in the Russian source, "zhareniye huhriki"? I always
assumed that it was a made-up word meant to convey something folksy-crude
and fried (something like "ponchiki", I imagined), but there have been
others who assumed VN made up words, only to be shamed by his unabridged
dictionary, so now I wonder... (I don't have Dal' handy.)
Vitaly Kupisk
Berkeley, CA
kupisk@compuserve.com
3.--------------------------------------------------------------------
Editor's Note.
I do have Dal' handy and it defines "Khukhrik" or "huhrik" ( in
VN's transliteration) as a dialectical word meaning "shchegolek. i.e., a
"fop" or "dandy"--which doesn't get us very far. "Shchegolek," however,
comes from the (possibly different) root(s) shchegOl-/shchOgol' (the
capital "O's" = stress), the first, "shchegOl" now meaning the "Eurasian
Goldfinch" (Carduelis carduelis) and the latter, "shchOgol'" a "Spotted
Redshank," (Tringa erythropus) related to snipe and woodcock. Both are
common in Northern Europe. (On my bird life list as Goldfinch: Lagos,
Portugal 10 Dec. 1978 & Spotted Redshanks: Minsmere, England Jun 10,
1992). Small passerines like sparrows (or finchs?) are roasted and eated
in Spain, but I have not seen them consumed elsewhere in Europe; nor do I
know whether "Spotten Redshanks" are eaten although their kinship with
snipe and woodcock suggests that such might be the case. So, to conclude:
my guess is that Nabokov's characters are eating a game bird resembling a
snipe.
As an irrelevant aside, I suggest (and I do not have Vasmer's
etymological dictionary at hand) that the meaning "fop" or "dandy" linked
with the root derives from the "goldfinch" meaning since the bird
(unlike the "Spotted Redshanks) is extremely colorful. Note too that the
English "popinjay" (fop) is a "folk etymology" coming from the same source
as the Russian "popugai" (parrot).
included in our on-going "Nabokovian Menus" Project?
____________________________________________________________
1. Steve Segal (segal@trib.infi.net) forwarded the following query (on
behalf of a friend) to me via Zembla. I am unable to supply a plausible
response. Any takers?
>I am writing on behalf of a friend who is reading "Invitation to a
>Beheading." He came across the term "fried chuckrick" and could not find a
>definition.
Jeff Edmunds
---------------------------------------------------------
2. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 20:01:16
-0400 From: Vitaly Kupisk <kupisk@compuserve.com> -----------------
Or, for that matter, in the Russian source, "zhareniye huhriki"? I always
assumed that it was a made-up word meant to convey something folksy-crude
and fried (something like "ponchiki", I imagined), but there have been
others who assumed VN made up words, only to be shamed by his unabridged
dictionary, so now I wonder... (I don't have Dal' handy.)
Vitaly Kupisk
Berkeley, CA
kupisk@compuserve.com
3.--------------------------------------------------------------------
Editor's Note.
I do have Dal' handy and it defines "Khukhrik" or "huhrik" ( in
VN's transliteration) as a dialectical word meaning "shchegolek. i.e., a
"fop" or "dandy"--which doesn't get us very far. "Shchegolek," however,
comes from the (possibly different) root(s) shchegOl-/shchOgol' (the
capital "O's" = stress), the first, "shchegOl" now meaning the "Eurasian
Goldfinch" (Carduelis carduelis) and the latter, "shchOgol'" a "Spotted
Redshank," (Tringa erythropus) related to snipe and woodcock. Both are
common in Northern Europe. (On my bird life list as Goldfinch: Lagos,
Portugal 10 Dec. 1978 & Spotted Redshanks: Minsmere, England Jun 10,
1992). Small passerines like sparrows (or finchs?) are roasted and eated
in Spain, but I have not seen them consumed elsewhere in Europe; nor do I
know whether "Spotten Redshanks" are eaten although their kinship with
snipe and woodcock suggests that such might be the case. So, to conclude:
my guess is that Nabokov's characters are eating a game bird resembling a
snipe.
As an irrelevant aside, I suggest (and I do not have Vasmer's
etymological dictionary at hand) that the meaning "fop" or "dandy" linked
with the root derives from the "goldfinch" meaning since the bird
(unlike the "Spotted Redshanks) is extremely colorful. Note too that the
English "popinjay" (fop) is a "folk etymology" coming from the same source
as the Russian "popugai" (parrot).