in the city of N

[Anna Frajlich-Zajac]

Yes!!! Nomen nescio, they all knew Latin as well as French.

Anna
Anna Frajlich-Zajac, Ph.D.
Senior Lecturer
Department of Slavic Languages
Columbia  University
704 Hamilton Hall, MC 2840
1130 Amsterdam Avenue
New York, NY 10027
Tel.  212-854-4850
Fax: 212-854-5009
http://www.annafrajlich.com/

On Nov 4, 2013, at 10:31 AM, Matthew Walker <mwalker7 at STANFORD.EDU> wrote:

> 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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>> 
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>> 
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