Matt: I do feel that you are overlooking some basic linguistic “truths.” Take first the notion that “skoramis” is a “rare” word, based on your earlier observation that it occurs only once in Greek literature, namely a play by Aristophanes. Well now ... (1) relatively little survives of classical Greek writings, so care is needed in making such judgments (2) Rare is not the same as obscure/arcane. The noun “dog” is more common than the noun “platypus” simply because there’s more canines around than platypi! (3) given that we have this single usage, the object referenced by “skoramis” is subject to some contextual guesswork. Apparently, Browning and other translators settled for some type of bedroom toilet artifact -- what we moderns would euphemistically call a “chamber-pot” or “commode” -- or more bluntly, “piss-pot.” As a guide to the dangers of assigning “rarity” by word-count, not one of these three words occur in the whole of Shakespeare! (“Piss” alone occurs 11 times.)
We may never know what a playful [sic!] word prankster like Aristophanes meant by “skoramis.” We tend to think of Greek and Latin as “frozen-clean” but at the time, in their day, they were subject to all the semantic/idiomatic shifts of living languages. I haven’t located “skoramis” in the Liddle-Scott online dictionaries, nor can I find “chamber-pot/commode” on the English side of L-S definitions, but I have sent a query to perseus at Tufts.
I have also downloaded the full 250MB text of Browning’s English translation of Aristophanes’ Apology. This seems the likely source. Stay tooned. As you know, Browning was a prodigious linguist, a master of Latin and Greek by age 14 or so. And only “saved” from a donnish Oxbridge fate by parental religious reservations. I agree with both Matt and A Bouazza that there’s no real contradiction in VN’s source-claim. It’s indeed plausible that the dons picked up “skoramis” from Browning and delighted in using the word as a naughty donnish “in-joke.” What we do NOW have as a linguistic FACT, carved in lexicographic stone: “skoramis” as a further euphemism for “piss-pot” supported by a citation from Nabokov.
Re-”mollitude”: one must distinguish the different levels of “neologization.” We all know of the influx of “inkhorn” words in the 17th-18th centuries. Latin roots especially were borrowed and grammatically Anglicized en masse with obvious meanings (if you knew the Latin!) They were considered more up-market than their Anglo-Saxon synonyms. But, as a separate word-forming mechanism, we have many “rules” in English whereby parts-of-speech can be transformed: nouns into adjectives; verbs into nouns; adjectives into adverbs. The resulting words and meanings rarely need a specific dictionary entry as “proof of existence.” Similarly, dictionaries need not be saddled with every word starting with UN- or ending with –LESS. I hope this observation will reduce the “argufaction” over NATURAL variants such as “mollitude” (noun) and “mollitious” (adjective).
Jansy’s reference to literary “swans” reminds me that VN would also have picked up from his Cambridge days the donnish-waspish limerick that was still popular during my terms (1950-55).
There once was a student from John’s [St John’s, the rival college next door to VN’s Trinity]
Who was fond of molesting the Swans;
When along came a Porter
Who said “Take my Daughter,
“THE SWANS IS RESERVED FOR THE DONS.”
Stan Kelly-Bootle
On 21/11/2008 14:22, "Matthew Roth" <MRoth@MESSIAH.EDU> wrote:
As I said, I don't have any evidence to deny that VN heard the word at Cambridge. That may be true. My small point was to note that VN avoided explaining that his use of skoramis is a direct allusion to Browning, which it clearly is. Instead of explaining that, he gave a less enlightening, though perhaps true and appropriate, response. So I don't really disagree with you. We're just interpreting "dodge" differently.
Matt
"A. Bouazza" wrote:
Dear Matt,
I don't think it is a dodge on VN's part.
VN may not have learnt the word "skoramis" from Browning; and what VN meant by "English dons in the past" may refer to his Cambridge days.
When it came to rare words, VN was the first to acknowledge their source, like in the case of "mollitude" which he used in his Eugene Onegin translation (and later on in ADA, Glory and Ultima Thule), and defended by stating that Browning had used that word. In fact, Browning used the adjective "mollitious" in Sordello and The Ring and the Book.
Kinbote believes Shade borrowed the word "stillicide" from the poem "Friends Beyond" by Thomas Hardy, but the same word we already encountered in Invitation to a Beheading. Besides, VN was a diligent reader of dictionaries.
Regards,
A. Bouazza.