----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, October 17, 2006 1:21
AM
Subject: [NABOKV-L] PF's
Tselovalnikok
In
my relentless campaign for ever more trivial observation, I offer the
following: in
the Note for line 17, we find:
"Jakob
Gradus called himself variously Jack Degree or Jacques de Grey, or James de
Gray, and also appears in police records as Ravus, Ravenstone, and d’Argus.
Having a morbid affection for the ruddy
Russia
of the Soviet era, he contended that the real origin of his name should be
sought in the Russian word for grape, vinograd, to which a Latin suffix
had adhered, making it Vinogradus. His father, Martin Gradus, had been a
Protestant minister in Riga,
but except for him and a maternal uncle (Roman Tselovalnikov, police officer
and part-time member of the Social-Revolutionary party), the whole clan
seems to have been in the liquor business."
---------------------------------------------
NOTE.
The maternal uncle "Tselovalnikov" also apparently had roots in the liquor
business since his name is an old word meaning "one who sells "drinks
in a tavern" (and, also a tax collector).
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