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Mike M replies:
The OED has a quote from Blackwood's in the entry for ululation: "The
women..burst forth in a shrill scream, with a quaver or ululation
resembling the note of the screech-owl." That's why it's called a
ululation. Didn't see anything about the Med, Asia or Portugal.
"Usually applied"? By Nabokov?
Someone kindly mentioned to me one additional use of the word 'midst'
in Pale Fire:
"I took a plane to New York, had the manuscript photographed, came to
terms with one of Shade's publishers, and was on the point of clinching
the deal when, quite casually, in the midst of a vast sunset..".
Doesn't seem to be archaic there. Which is not to say that it may not
elsewhere imply an archaic resonance. Like the use of the word "Nay" it
could be a clue to an allusion to former times.
MM
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Jansy Mello: Great warnings related to allusionists and to the possibly
deliberate near-archaic/literary use of "in the midst"
Unlike Mike Marcus's developments in relation to "ululations," *I would
dismiss any association to Macbeth in the lines: "Hardly had the girls
settled down when an electric storm that was to last all night
enveloped their refuge with such theatrical ululations and flashes as
to make it impossible to attend to any indoor sounds or lights."
The word is usually applied to the hooting sound produced by
Mediterranean and Asian women in a celebratory mood, and it's also used
(in Portuguese, at least) to recreate the howling winds during a
tempest. I have the feeling that Nabokov employed it in this sense,
adding to its scandal the kind of "theatrical" imitation, so dear to
Kinbote, with no mind for its owlish origin.