Subject:
RE: [NABOKV-L] Fw: Skaters, frost and oozy plums /CORRECTION OF "isculzo"
From:
"Dmitri Nabokov" <cangrande@bluewin.ch>
Date:
Sun, 26 Nov 2006 23:02:26 +0100
To:
"'Vladimir Nabokov Forum'" <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>

Jansy: I can, with reasonable certainty and to a certain degree, thus correct your interpretation of this saying:
 
"He who sows spinach shall not walk barefoot." "Isculzo" is a dialect derivation, probably Sicilian, perhaps genuine, of "scalzo", which, in "lingua", or legitimate Italian, in turn derives from "calzare" (to wear on one''s feet), preceded by "s", a contraction of the negative "dis". In many dialect forms in Sicily and Sardinia the "o" vowel has undergone  a mutation into "u". Hence, my take on the statement and my conjecture regarding its sense: "he who cultivates a valuable crop shall never be impoverished". My dictionary of Italian dialects unfortunately does not contain these forms, so I'll confirm my surmise next time I converse in Sicilian with a live source. I am also less certain about the spelling "ki" for "chi" ("who"), or about "ispinaza" which looks suspiciously like a macaronic variant of "spinaci" (spinach)., and about a few other details. As for plums, Red Admirables and dead rabbits, I'd say it's safe to forget them.
 
DN

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