Stan K-Bootle: NO, Jansy! VN’s
usage is correct. “Mollitious” in English is an adjectival form of the noun
“mollitude.” To complicate matters[...} we can go from adj. “mollitious” to verb
“mollitate” and yet another noun, “mollitation.” [...]What makes English grammar
so divinely agonizing is that adjectives often appear as noun-like. I can write
“Mollitude will prevail!”or“The mollitious will
prevail!”
JM: Is there a
prevailing "mollitiousness", too?
Anyway, what does
"mollittude" mean in VN 's sentence ( the luxury and
mollitude of my first Villa Venus) and... would it be correct to go
a step further and associate "luxury" to its Latin origin, ie, to what is
voluptuous and licentious?
btw: when I sent the example of "vagalume", in
reply to Victor Fet's posting ( firefly, "wandering light"), I forgot to
mention that it is an euphemism for unpoetic "cagalume" ( light-shitter).
......................................................................................................................................
EDNOTE.
I suggest that we hereby end this thread, which although interesting seems
to be moving away from VN. -- SES]
SKB to Mary B/A Bouazza: thanks
for the clarifications. All that remains is to pin down exactly what
Aristophanes meant, in context, and what L&S mean
by “night stool!”
Browning & VN used skoramis as a donnish euphemism for “piss-pot” in lieu of
the mundane euphemisms “commode” or “chamber-pot,”
Mary’s note that skoramis
is related to skor/skatos (dung/faecal) [...]All of which warns us of language’s
“slings and arrows.” And of the problems involved defining “euphemisms” and
“pornography.” There’s nothing inherently obscene or “illiterate” in
the Anglo-Saxon versions. To VN’s ears,though, the shorter, blunter forms seemed
lazy, uncreative, and almost deliberately belligerently “in your
face.”