According to Bruce Stone, one of John Ray's pomposities is "the
too-precious and antiquated verb 'preambulates'."
In the word prologue
(foreword) and in the epilogue (afterword) there's an indication
of that which is being spoken, as in a play, or in a written in a text.
The same seems to be the case for "preface" (pre + phanai,"speak",
phasis, "word").The ambiguity that Bruce Stone noticed in John Ray's preamble
["'Lolita, or the Confession of a White Widowed Male,' such
were the two titles under which the writer of the present note received the
strange pages it preambulates"] may become more glaring
because the passage from a noun to a verb in this case
gets problematic once we realize that, unlike "prologue" and "preface"
(dealing with "words") the meaning of "ambulate" is "walk." (literally, to
use a pair of legs to move around). John Ray walks ahead of himself
just like Humbert Humbert comes before himself?*
So much for impossible figures...
Besides, the "preamble" usually points
to a lawyer's introductory formalities to a decree, right?. In "Lolita" the
lawyer in question must be JR Jr's cousin, not Jr himself.
Strange....
(Jansy)
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* - "Had I come before myself, I would
have given Humbert at least thirty-five years for rape, and dismissed the rest
of the charges..."