Subject
Re: pardonner/ perdonner/bzdet/perdet
From
Date
Body
Dear Mary Bellino,
Eh, pardon (aoristically) but Chantraine (1968) does suggest that the
difference between 'perdomai' and 'bdeo' relates to 'sonicity' ('radical
sonore expressif. Autre radical présentant une autre sonorité.' Both I.E.
roots are reflected in the two Russian words)
From the colour of vowels to the odour of bowels is a small vocalic step
for, in its mooning airs, anglophone mankind. In retroinspective hindsound,
one cannot but remark with surprise on the paucity of words existing in
otherwise vigorous languages for such a universal phenomenon, for what
cockney rhyming slang calls a 'horse and cart'. I can recall to mind 10
standard terms in Australian speech, 9 of which are nicely summed up in a
nursery couplet. The Roman dialect poet Giuseppe Gioachino Belli, the most
prolific sonneteer in the history of literature, and a poet with as rich an
imagination as Aristophanes, who, in The Clouds, has Socrates himself
divagate on the analogy between meteorological thunder (bronté) and farting
(pordé), dedicated several 'odes' to the subject in his Roman vernacular.
Rather off-colour if not on the nose, certainly, but literature, certainly
after James Joyce's 'pprrpffrrppfff', is no longer intimidated by prurience.
For the record, one of them runs thus:-
177
What's that filthy whiff! Pew! a dinky-puff by the likes,
Dropt on the sly! Dull plops hinting at a silent fart!
Just smell them aromas of rotten eggs! Kerrripes!
Gert!, this that lemon balm ya brought me, sweetheart?
Get the innkeeper down below to fetch a pot
And pound in to its *rse a dash of herbal roots,
With slices of a spadepear on the side and some shoots
Of rue, pure c*ckseed, oil and garlic. It'll fix your bot.
Other things that work wonders? a cudgel fits the task,
Or a rod from the hinge of a cellar door,
Or one of them spigot tubes for draining a cask.
So you was the first to get wind of the stench, ay Gert? Well,
You know that saying we have in our local lore,
When you get a burst, the one that did it's first to cop the smell.
C'mon! don't play us the innocent part:
When thunder or lightening's behind us, striking at the bore-
Hole, just say out loud and clear: "I dropt a fart."
Peter N.Dale
> Interesting--ancient Greek also has two words for the bodily
> function Don discusses: "bdeo," with the same b-d root as the
> Russian bzdet', and "perdomai," with the same root as perdet.
> Vulgar or not, these are words with a resounding lineage. And
> as far as I know, the two Greek words have never been
> distinguished on the basis of sonicity. I'll have to look into
> this further; we may be able to make a small (but audible)
> contribution to Greek lexicography.
>
> Yours in the cause of disinterested scholarship,
> Mary Bellino
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Eh, pardon (aoristically) but Chantraine (1968) does suggest that the
difference between 'perdomai' and 'bdeo' relates to 'sonicity' ('radical
sonore expressif. Autre radical présentant une autre sonorité.' Both I.E.
roots are reflected in the two Russian words)
From the colour of vowels to the odour of bowels is a small vocalic step
for, in its mooning airs, anglophone mankind. In retroinspective hindsound,
one cannot but remark with surprise on the paucity of words existing in
otherwise vigorous languages for such a universal phenomenon, for what
cockney rhyming slang calls a 'horse and cart'. I can recall to mind 10
standard terms in Australian speech, 9 of which are nicely summed up in a
nursery couplet. The Roman dialect poet Giuseppe Gioachino Belli, the most
prolific sonneteer in the history of literature, and a poet with as rich an
imagination as Aristophanes, who, in The Clouds, has Socrates himself
divagate on the analogy between meteorological thunder (bronté) and farting
(pordé), dedicated several 'odes' to the subject in his Roman vernacular.
Rather off-colour if not on the nose, certainly, but literature, certainly
after James Joyce's 'pprrpffrrppfff', is no longer intimidated by prurience.
For the record, one of them runs thus:-
177
What's that filthy whiff! Pew! a dinky-puff by the likes,
Dropt on the sly! Dull plops hinting at a silent fart!
Just smell them aromas of rotten eggs! Kerrripes!
Gert!, this that lemon balm ya brought me, sweetheart?
Get the innkeeper down below to fetch a pot
And pound in to its *rse a dash of herbal roots,
With slices of a spadepear on the side and some shoots
Of rue, pure c*ckseed, oil and garlic. It'll fix your bot.
Other things that work wonders? a cudgel fits the task,
Or a rod from the hinge of a cellar door,
Or one of them spigot tubes for draining a cask.
So you was the first to get wind of the stench, ay Gert? Well,
You know that saying we have in our local lore,
When you get a burst, the one that did it's first to cop the smell.
C'mon! don't play us the innocent part:
When thunder or lightening's behind us, striking at the bore-
Hole, just say out loud and clear: "I dropt a fart."
Peter N.Dale
> Interesting--ancient Greek also has two words for the bodily
> function Don discusses: "bdeo," with the same b-d root as the
> Russian bzdet', and "perdomai," with the same root as perdet.
> Vulgar or not, these are words with a resounding lineage. And
> as far as I know, the two Greek words have never been
> distinguished on the basis of sonicity. I'll have to look into
> this further; we may be able to make a small (but audible)
> contribution to Greek lexicography.
>
> Yours in the cause of disinterested scholarship,
> Mary Bellino
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm