Word: exacts
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Persia in the 14th century with a little symbol showing where is produced the oil, the wine, the camel dung, and so forth. All of these are reflected through the drop of honey and come back on to the blossom. Now, the artist works for years to get this exact color, and-marvelous to relate-he is able to. But does he paint that exact color? No. Because that is nature, and he is an artist. And to show this he paints it some other color, such as black, or orange, or blue...
...uncommon elsewhere in the world that only about 50 cases had been reported until McKusick's Hopkins team moved into Pennsylvania. There they found proof of at least 49 cases since 1860, with 24 still living. Most exciting, genetically at least: the Amish keep such exact genealogical records that McKusick was able to trace all 60 parents to whom the 49 were born. And all were descended from a single immigrant and his wife...
...Russian raised on the original poem, Nabokov's version naturally lacks the music, but retains much of the rhythm, and at least does not (as do the often jingly previous translations) mock Pushkin's music by the clumsiness of its imitation. The sense is as nearly exact as translation permits...
Horned or Cornute. Nabokov's own enormous word skill gives the translation felicity. But his very range of language allows him to choose words which, although exact in meaning, do not give the flavor of the original, generally because they are too highflown or arcane. The simple Russian word for "horned" (Ch. 6, XXXIX) becomes "cornute," which means horned but is not a simple English word. Simple words for "sweetness" and "youth" become "dulcitude" and "juventude" in English (Nabokov excuses himself somewhat abashedly by pointing out that the sense of the couplet-a sneer at moon-June versifying-requires...
Occasionally (as when Nabokov solemnly offers as a talisman the lines that happen to fall at the exact center of the work), the notes are extreme enough to be worthy of Professor Kinbote, the demented footnoter of Nabokov's own Pale Fire...