Thanks for the pruning, Dmitri. As Giulia Visintin remarked, I'd better avoid thorny issues when not properly shod.
 
I'm sorry, though, for having side-tracked John Rea's original quest: "It will be remembered that the novel in question was translated into Italian by a certain Dmitri Nabokov, whose inspired translation of the play in question was, "Gighe Focose," literally "Fiery Jigs".  It is a scholarly embarrassment to me that I cannot recall where Mr N. wrote a brief note including this gem... Someone with more lively memory is welcome to rescue me here..."
 
( By the way "Focose"...doesn't it also suggest "Ardent,i.e, full of ardor"?)
 
Michael Strickland noted a slip when Andrew Brown named Virginia Woolf's novel "Floss" instead of "Flush" ( the name of the Browning couple's dog in her 1933 book) before he observed that Colette's dog Floss, in "Speak,Memory" answers to a similar call. How delightful.
Jansy
----- Original Message -----
From: Nabokv-L
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Monday, November 27, 2006 12:23 PM
Subject: [NABOKV-L] DN update re: Sicilian


Subject:
RE: [NABOKV-L] DN on "isculzo" & Italian dialects
From:
"Dmitri Nabokov"
Date:
Mon, 27 Nov 2006 10:06:38 +0100
To:
"'Vladimir Nabokov Forum'" <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>

Dear Jansy et al:
 
I have just had confirmation from a genuine sicula (Sicilian, dial.) that my interpretation of the form and substance of the Sicilian dialect saying ki semenat ispinaza, non andet isculzu [he  who sows spinach shall not walk unshod (barefoot)] is correct. It seems to contain nothing spurious, and my only perplexity concerns the curious spelling of ki for chi.
 
DN

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