Babel's intriguing zmeiki

[Timothy D. Sergay]

> Yes, _zmeika_ is a synonym for _molniia_, but in the meaning "zipper,"
> not "lightning."
>
> Bob Rothstein

Very interesting indeed! Does anyone have the "nauchnyi" "slovar' odesskogo 
iazyka" to which one finds references on the runet? (e.g.  Первый научный 
словарь одесского языка готовится к выпуску на филологическом факультете 
Одесского университета. 24.1.2002 )?

The trick would be to establish what "Odessan" sense the word "zmeika" could 
have had for Babel in 1916. My guess, though, would be that the "zipper" 
sense of "zmeika" is indeed exclusive of the weather phenomenon "lightning" 
and relates by visual resemblance to the "jewelry" slang senses of "zmeika" 
(like "tsepochka," "braslet," string of beads) that you find s.v. "zmeika" 
in Elistratov (Slovar' moskovskogo argo) and elsewhere (Mokienko, Bol'shoi 
slovar russkogo argo); the serrated look of a zipper fits the "tonkaia 
pilka" sense of "zmeika" as well.

"Zipper," of course, doesn't seem to help with translating this passage from 
"Odessa." I wonder whether Babel's "zmeika" could be a feminized version of 
"zmeenysh" in the slang sense "rebenok, syn," which Elistratov associates 
with the criminal job title "zmeenysh" -- a very slender boy employed as a 
"fortochnik": breaking and entering via narrow windows (fortochki). Then the 
trope could be "reduced" as Hayward does, more or less, to the idea of a 
small, slight girl: "I've even seen some little Odessan chanteuses, mere 
slips of girls, who augur well for the future." The alternative idea of 
augury by snake omens (i.e., "zmeek" is its own figurative substantive and 
amounts to "signs, omens") is unfamiliar to me. I'm inclined to read "zmeek" 
as in apposition to "pevits," in any case, as Hayward does. I.e., "Ia vizhu 
malen'kikh, sovsem malen'kikh devchat, ditiat -- pevits..." Iza Kremer was 
already 31 in 1916, but it's clear that for Babel she represents a class of 
probably younger representatives.

Tim Sergay 

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