in the city of N

[Matthew Walker]

In one of the more famous examples, Dead Souls, you have "NN," which 
stands for "Nomen nescio" (I don't know the name).

Matt Walker

On 11/4/13 7:07 AM, R. M. Cleminson wrote:
> N. stands for "nomen".  It was the convention all over Europe to write "N." anywhere where an unspecified name needed to be supplied, and so this is a "westernising" feature in Russian literature (the Slavonic equivalent is имярекъ).
>
> ----- Pôvodná správa -----
> Od: "Michele A Berdy" <maberdy at GMAIL.COM>
> Komu: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU
> Odoslané: pondelok, 4. november 2013 14:19:50
> Predmet: [SEELANGS] in the city of N
>
>
>
>
> Dear SEELANGers
>
> An internet friend with an engaging blog called LanguageHat posed a question a few days ago that I’m embarrassed to say I don’t know the answer to and in fact never thought to ask. He asked why Russian authors writing about provincial cities called them “N” (or S, etc.). Beyond “it’s a convention” and “it gives an air of verisimilitude” – I have no idea. Where did this convention come from? Has anyone written about this?
>
>
>
> The second question that followed: can anyone think of pre-revolutionary Russian fiction about provincial cities (other than St. Petersburg and Moscow) where the city is identified?
>
> Many thanks!
>
> Michele Berdy
>
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