EDNote: I missed this one on Friday--sorry! I'm turning the reins over
to SES for the next three months. I'm always available for technical
questions, of course, if they're within my modest competence. ~SB
-------- Original Message --------
Thanks to all who have contributed information on "stillicide"
and its cognates.
My comments to Jansy are below.
--- jansymello <jansy@AETERN.US> wrote:
...
> Literaly, very literaly then, "estilicido" indicates "droppings
from the
> eaves" that might harden in the shape of a dagger( stiletto).
Indeed a stiletto is the kind of dagger that an icicle most
resembles, being thick rather than flat. As a trifle (I think),
one might see an etymological connection to pens and to "style".
> Figuratively its use varies from snoopy eaves-dropping (Kinbote?),
Now that you mention it, I'm sure you're right.
> to
> boring insistence, constipation, rheumy eyes, running nose, drops
of
> blood, menses, abortion ...
>
> Was Kinbote's dictionary ( as he mentioned it explicitly in his
note fom
> his Cedarn cave) also a Websters 2nd ??
I'll dare to say "No" without a Webster's 2nd. No dictionary is
playful enough to write "eavesdrop, cavesdrop". Also, the
definition of "lemniscate" is misleading: lemniscates are not
"bicircular", except for a degenerate case of one kind. I imagine
Nabokov used the word to emphasize the connection to "bicycle"
and to set up a sequence of 1, 2, 4 (uni-, bi-, quart-), since
the most obvious continuation of that sequence is 8.
Jerry Friedman