One person’s love of precision is another’s pedantry. As my favourite T-shirts asks, ‘Is there a hyphen in anal retentive?’
We mathematicians treat interval-counting with numbing intensity, far beyond the grasp of lay Nabokovians, or indeed of Nabokov himself!
Bruce Stone is correct in noting that the answer to the question ‘How many Xs?’ oft depends on how X is defined. It can also depend on the definition of ‘counting.’
One aspect of the problem, famous in computing folklore as OBOE (Off-by-one Error), aliter the Fencepost problem, is far from pedantic squabbling, having cost real money, reputations, and even lives. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-by-one_error
And my own oft-quoted pearl heads the canonical debate at
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WhyNumberingShouldStartAtZero
Mathematicians/logicians shun any preferential treatment for ‘literal’ meanings, pointing to the etymological fallacy and the fact of semantic drift. For example, ‘yesterday’ can be X-time-units-ago for any 0 < X <= D, where D represents the number of time-units defining a ‘day’ (24 hours being merely a convenient approximation for a complex, variable astronomical interval.) With the human quirks of date-lines and calendars, my yesterday can be your tomorrow, or vice versa.
Note that for values of X less than one Planck time unit (approx 0.0000 ...[43 zeroes; who’s counting?] ... 5 of a second), the AGO part of the question/answer is widely considered devoid of physical meaning.
Summary: it’s usually possible, and always worth trying, to avoid arguments about rival, conflicting, dogmatic answers, by proper use of that magic IF. (No time for a Pale Fire digression ... )
IF (def X = A1) THEN Answer = B2; ... IF (def X = An) THEN Answer = Bn.
Jansy (Happy Mothering Day!) rightly points to the problem of ‘spurious precision.’ Luzhin is asked a mathematically ill-defined question (how long has he been playing chess?), but one that’s undeniably sensible in everyday, informal terms. ‘Normal’ responses include ‘At least 18 years ...’ or ‘I’ve really no idea ... I was quite young when I picked up the moves ... Actually playing real chess ... That’s hard to pin down, if you’ll pardon the pun ...‘
Sirin/Luzhin’s ‘spuriously precise’ answer of 18 years 4 months 3 days is a risible reminder, if such were needed, that Luzhin is one of those daft mono-talented geniuses, closer to Bobby Fischer, methinks, than to VN’s original model Count Curt von Bardeleben. La bêtise comes many varieties, as any scrutiny of the Nobel Laureate’s list will confirm.
Incidentally, I was chuffed to discover that Marleen Gorris 2000 film version of Luzhin’s Defence shows an outrageously illegal chess move. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Luzhin_Defence#Cinematic_error
Other, better-versed VN-listers will know if this was an intentional ‘error’ based on something in VN’s novel or memoirs. I plan to ferret when my current abulia subsides.
Stan Kelly-Bootle
On 16/03/2012 19:39, "jansymello" <jansy@AETERN.US> wrote:
Bruce Stone:" ...Perhaps the problem has received little attention because no Nabokovian has yet seen the wisdom of insisting so inflexibly on the meaning of the phrase "days ago" (which rings of literal-mindedness)....
JM: Bruce Stone is right about VN's registered annoyance with literal-mindedness and stupidity (like Mr. Teste's*). He was also irritated by a reader's wish to find out if a story is "true." However, certain depictions of a disturbed mind (about those who suffer from obsessive or concrete thinking) are not derisive, disrespectful although he isn't particularly compassionate either. As we can read in the example below, in Luzin's precise answer. "...Then, fully aware of the stupidity of the question but incapable of stopping herself, she asked how long he had been playing chess. He gave no answer and turned away and she felt so embarrassed that she began to reel off a list of all the meteorological indications for yesterday, today and tomorrow. He continued silent and she also fell silent, and then she began to rummage in her handbag, searching agonizingly for a topic and finding only a broken comb. Suddenly he turned his face to her and said: 'Eighteen years, three months and four days.' For her this was an exquisite relief, and furthermore she was somehow flattered by the elaborate circumstantiality of his reply. Subsequently, however, she began to grow a little annoyed that he in his turn never asked any questions, taking her, as it were, for granted."
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* - Valèry: "La bêtise n'es pas mon fort"