French name?

[Francoise Rosset]

Since Alina has pulled us "resident French speakers" both into the fray,
maybe Philippe has some more thoughts.
I stayed out of it because I know less than nothing about Platonov, and I
can't tell if this was really a French name.
I am awed by the possibilities, though, and the collective knowledge of
this list.

Here's my meager contribution.

There's something about Shotlua that keeps tugging at the back of my mind.
Don't know what it is. To be even more vague, it bothers me because it
seems somehow NOT French to me, maybe with the assumed Russian
pronunciation. I can't tell you why except SHATlua would have sounded
immediately french and this does not.
Has everyone eliminated the possibility that it might BE Shotlew, and what
is that anyway?

"Bessonet is reminiscent of the french besogne, meaning “need” or even
“sexual intercourse”; favor sounds like faveur, meaning “favor,” also often
in a sexual context."

OK, this I can comment on a bit.

Alina is right that the S/Z distinction is significant in French. It also
changes the pronunciation of that E. A French person would likely NOT
associate a properly pronounced Bessonet, an actual name, and besogne..
(The word "need" in french is besoin, which to most French kids denotes a
euphemism for going to the bathroom. I don't remember "besogne" (chore)
meaning need.)

Apparently "besogne" DOES have sexual connotations. Learn something every
day. It was used as such mostly from the 12th to the 16th centuries and got
revived somehow.
As for favor, the word faveur IS used in French to mean sexual favors, but
frankly to me that seems terribly stilted and I've never seen it in
literature. In ENGLISH, on the other hand .... and "favor" is English not
french.
I had trouble even finding "favor" in french google -- but I did find this,
which may or may not be significant since we're talking about a hydraulic
pump:
"Favor était une entreprise française fabricant des motos, cyclomoteurs et
cycles à Chamalières <http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamali%C3%A8res> près
de Clermont-Ferrand <http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clermont-Ferrand>. Fondée
en 1898 par Etienne Guillaume, elle a fermé ses portes en 1977."

Someone -- Robert I think -- said we're probably missing something.
We are, though not for lack of trying and thinking ...
-FR



On Thu, May 16, 2013 at 11:36 AM, Alina Israeli <aisrael at american.edu>wrote:

> It seems to me that in French the distinction S/Z is much more important
> than in Russian or in English, although we should ask our resident French
> native speakers  Françoise and Philippe. Even Russian alternations happen
> on the morpheme line, not in the root, at least I cannot think of any such
> instances.
>
> While Besson and Bessonet exist in French they are pronounced with S,
> while *besogne* is pronounced with a Z. Бессонэ to me is a lot closer to
> Бессонов, a last name that exists and which implies bez-sna 'sans sommeil',
> 'sleepless'.
>
> *Besson* on the other hand means 'twin'.
>
>
> On May 16, 2013, at 1:54 AM, Robert Chandler wrote:
>
>
> Here is the endnote that Eric Naiman, myself, and I forget who else
> eventually came up with for the first appearance of this woman in HAPPY
> MOSCOW.
> • Platonov mentions a hydraulic pump called “Bessonet-favor” in his
> article “Goryachaya arktika” [Chutyo pravdy (Moscow: sovetskaya rossiya,
> 1990), 335–340]. In Happy Moscow this name is a pun. It recalls the
> achievements of world technology, and it is erotically charged. Bessonet is
> reminiscent of the french besogne, meaning “need” or even “sexual
> intercourse”; favor sounds like faveur, meaning “favor,” also often in a
> sexual context.
>
>
> Alina Israeli
> Associate Professor of Russian
> WLC, American University
> 4400 Massachusetts Ave.
> Washington DC 20016
> (202) 885-2387  fax (202) 885-1076
> aisrael at american.edu
>
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Françoise Rosset
Chair, Russian and Russian Studies
Wheaton College, Norton MA 02766
office:     508-286-3696
FAX #:     508-286-3640
frosset at wheatonma.edu

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