nichto o nichem, v razgovorakh o nichem

[Loren A. Billings]

Dear colleagues:

Kindly assist me with native-Russian intuitions (either your own or those
of speakers you know).  I have encountered several examples of negated
prepositional phrases in Russian in which the relative order of _ni_ and
the preposition are the reverse, including the following two:

     nichto o nichem 'nothing about nothing' (title of Belinskii article),

     v razgovorakh o nichem (Polonskii "A.N. Maikovu)

     [both quoted in Slovar' sovremennogo russkogo literaturnogo iazyka
     1958, tom 7, p. 1336].

Unlike other prepositional phrases like this, in which the meaning is '(a)
nothing(ness)', some of my informants flatly reject this order if the
preposition is _o_ 'about'.  Kindly forward your judgments to me
(billings at mailer.fsu.edu).  I'll post a summary to the list.

Sincerely,
--Loren Billings